Bits and Pieces and Drabbles
by Atlin Merrick
Summary: Sherlock and John in wee little dribs and drabs. Short bits of fiction, prompt fills for friends, or just little stories that don't want to grow up to be big stories.
1. A Fluffly Little Necrophilia Fic

**Fluffy Little Necrophilia Fic**

"I could do _that_ to you forever," Sherlock said softly, kissing his lover's temple.

John was dreamily drowsing against Sherlock's chest after some very lovely, very slow sex, so what he said next can be forgiven. Or taken with a grain of salt. Or perhaps just ignored, maybe that would be for the best.

"Well, not after I'm dead please...mmmm." Then the doctor chuckled to himself and snuggled a little deeper under the bed clothes.

Everything was quiet for awhile while two hearts beat, two bodies warmed each other, and at least one brain occupied itself intently.

Which, by now, the other brain can quite nearly _feel._

"Sherlock?"

The man in question said nothing.

"Sherlock. You're thinking about that, aren't you?"

The man being accused said nothing.

"Sherlock, stop it. Stop thinking about my dead body. And sex. Even for you that's beyond—beyond—well it's just beyond."

Sherlock being nothing more and nothing less than Sherlock, did not deny what he was thinking, but he did feel compelled to _clarify._ Sherlock always feels obliged to inform, elucidate, make clear.

Whether you damn well want him to or not.

"I wasn't thinking of sex _with_ your dead body, per se, John."

The good doctor sighed. It was his fault. He knows that. He started it and he's regretting it already. But he's prepared. You have to be. If you live with Sherlock Holmes there is nothing, absolutely nothing—from your granny's knickers to the way you sit on the toilet—that is sacred. Nothing. Zero. Zilch.

So.

"I'll listen to whatever you're going to say, but if you paused just then hoping I would prompt you for more? Well you will be waiting until I am dead. Just so you know."

It shouldn't technically be possible to feel your lover smile when your head is pillowed on his chest, but it is possible just the same. John smiled in return and Sherlock felt the curve of lips against his skin. Unconsciously his hand drifted up, to stroke John's hair.

"It's just that…you made me think."

"Blame me will you?"

"No, I just mean…when you said that, the first thought I had was 'What if John died and I hadn't kissed him that day?'"

Pillowed on your lover's chest you can also feel a smile turn to a frown.

"And of course that made me think about kissing you. If you'd died. Because John? I would. I very much would. I wouldn't be able to stop. I don't think I could make myself st—"

John lifted his head, put a hand over Sherlock's mouth. "Stop. Stop. I'm not…and you're not…and no one has to think about last kisses or—"

With a groan Sherlock slid down into the bedcovers and shut John up—and himself—the best way he knew how.

.. ..

A little while later they were in much the same post-coital positions, looking quite fetching with similar post-coital glows.

Again John started with the drowsy talking. He probably shouldn't talk when he's half asleep. Really. "You'd just kiss me, mmmm?"

Sherlock said nothing.

John opened his eyes. "I mean that's where it'd stop, right?"

The man being asked said nothing.

"Sherlock. I can hear you thinking. Stop it."

The detective laughed softly, this time letting long fingers stroke slowly over John's shoulder. "I want you to notice that you're the one bringing this up. Over and over. Then you blame me for all sorts of unspeakably filthy thoughts."

John ignored this very true assertion and lifted his head again. "You wouldn't do _it._ Would you? Even if we hadn't had sex for weeks before I'd died? It'd just be a kiss. That's where you'd stop, right?"

Again Sherlock slid down into the bed, until he was face to face with his lover. "Do you really want to know?"

John frowned. Then nodded.

"Are you sure?"

John bit his lip. Then nodded.

"Because I'm about to tell you."

John's face went dark and scowly. And he nodded.

"So you're sure you want to know whether I'd have sex with your after you had shed your mortal coil? If I'd touch your body after you had gone to your great reward? If I'd crawl on top and have a go?"

So help him, John was actually breathing a little heavier suddenly—

"Okay, here goes—"

—and this confused the good doctor so much—

"Well, I'd—"

—that he sort of shrieked a little, bounded out of bed, and fled buck naked to the shower, where he stayed with the hottest water he could stand for the next thirty minutes.

Sherlock, meantime, giggled himself off into a very nice nap.


	2. A Silly Little Caffeine Fic

**A Silly Little Caffeine Fic**

"DO IT FASTER," John said, at volume.

"DON'T YELL," Sherlock yelled back, tripping as he yanked his pants off.

"I'M NOT YELLING!" shouted the doctor from behind the shower curtain.

Standing on the other side of that curtain Sherlock didn't reply, too busy trying to make his shaking fingers work, but they refused. Apparently twelve cans of Coke, consumed in a sixty minute period, _did_ indeed provide too much caffeine for a normal person to shoot straight. Hell, forget shooting, Sherlock couldn't even—

"Are you doing it, Sherlock?" hollered the good doctor over the not-very-noisy splash of running water.

"I'm trying to—"

"GOOD GOD HAVE YOU DONE IT?"

Sherlock threw his wildly trembling hands in the air. To hell with it. He was just going to get into the shower with his watch on. If he stood out here one more minute he might fly apart, and in the meantime John was hogging all the hot water. Never mind that the good doctor had consumed twelve cans of _diet _Coke for Sherlock's experiment and was shaking so hard he'd actually gotten into the shower with his shirt on because he couldn't undo the buttons.

"I'm coming John!"

"Not without me you aren't!"

Sherlock dropped the last of his clothes to the floor. He wasn't sure whose idea this was, but they both agreed that a good, hot orgasm would get the blood flowing and maybe wash some of this caffeine out of their system. Why it was happening in the shower the detective couldn't exactly remember.

Sherlock shoved the shower curtain aside, clambered into the tub, and immediately lost his balance. Breaking his fall by grabbing at John's waist seemed the most logical thing in the world, so he did and both men tumbled out of the tub and onto the floor of the loo, thrashing around briefly like pale, landed fish.

"What the absolute flying fuck are you doing you idiotic unbalanced fucking crazy person?" howled a soaking wet John from his position beneath Sherlock.

Sherlock for his part let his eyebrows crawl into his hairline. John had never talked to him like that in his life. But he wasn't done.

"If I don't get a shagging right now, Sherlock, if I don't absolutely come buckets, if I don't feel you fucking me balls to the wall, I am probably going to break into a million dreadfully over-caffeinated pieces!"

John burped Coke-breath into Sherlock's face. "I'm sorry, but I really need an orgasm or I am possibly going to die." To punctuate his communiqué, John twisted under his lover until he was on his belly, back arched to present the relevant bits, then said, "Do it. Do it. Make my eyes roll up into the back of my head." He thought for a second and then added, loudly, "PLEASE!"

Sherlock's answer was to get on all fours, grab the lube from inside the shower stall, slick up his spectacular hard-on, and thrust at John's fabulous arse—and completely miss the bull's eye.

"Sherlock," came a sort of burpy growl.

The detective felt like possibly his eyes were bugging out of his head, so he squeezed them shut to keep them inside, then thrust his hips hopefully at John's bum again. Nothing.

"Sherlooooock."

The detective's eyes flew open and he hollered: "I can't get it in!"

"THAT'S IT!"

John flipped over, grabbed Sherlock around the waist, yanked him to the floor, and pressed the detective up against the side of the tub. Sherlock relaxed, though you'd never know it from the Richter scale-level shaking of his body, none of which mattered once he felt John's hand pushing between his legs from behind. Sherlock let John spread his thighs, pressed two hands against the tub and said, "Yes, yes, yes"—burp—"yes, yes, yes."

John's fingers slid inside him, and he was biting—hard—at Sherlock's back.

"Yes John, yes John, yes yes yes."

Using his own hips to set a rhythm for the fingers he had inside Sherlock, John pumped away for a few blissfully long moments, extremely caffeinated, extremely hard, and then extremely ready.

"READY, SHERLOCK?"

"ALWAYS."

That was all John needed to hear. Lubing up fast he shoved his cock against Sherlock's arse—missing the first three times. But John was not a quitter and he finally sank a hole-in-one (you'll pardon the expression) on try four and both men groaned.

"HARDER!" yelled the detective, wriggling his hips wildly and randomly because he couldn't quite manage a back and forth movement.

"I just got in there!" John yelled back, trying to stay on the ride. Finally he did some wriggling of his own, got the detective on his belly and himself on top and then said, "Hold on!" and started pumping away in caffeine-crazed abandon.

Sherlock started sounding off immediately, gleefully stimulated by the nubby-textured bath mat beneath him. "Oh yes! That's good! Harder harder harder har—"

John reached around and clamped a hand over Sherlock's mouth, bit at his shoulder. The detective yelped high and fierce, shoving his arse up to meet each one of John's pounding thrusts.

"I'm going to come, good god I'm going to come already!"

In reply to this Sherlock bit John's hand, gave the bath mat a few more lusty pumps of his slender hips and started coming hard enough to roll his eyes up into his head.

Sherlock's spasming body was pretty much all John needed to tip the scales, and he started firing away messily inside his lover.

Afterward they both sort of lay there, vibrating, Sherlock mentally writing up the experiment in his head, John wondering why the loo floor looked so shiny.

In the end, it's a good thing they were _really, really, really_ awake (for the next twenty nine hours, actually) because the amount of water that had sprayed all over the floor (John's flailing hand had hit the shower head as they fell) as they fucked fast and furious, took all night to clean up, and even still John had a sneaking suspicion some of it had leaked through the floorboards and into Mrs. Hudson's bedroom closet.

_

* * *

Don't ask. I really don't know. From Somewhere. Isn't that where weird drabbles like these always come from?_


	3. Like a Man

**Like a…Man**

Sherlock wouldn't meet John's eye.

While dozens of other diners murmured and chatted and laughed over expensive dinners, the two lovers sat in silence in their quiet corner booth and Sherlock shoveled food into his mouth, barely chewed before swallowing, and he _would not meet John's eye._

Fine. That was fine. It was…fine. He didn't have to. Really. Because John's eyes were busy. Very busy. What, with you know, the staring.

Fettuccini forgotten, wine ignored, bread sticks unbuttered, John Watson damn well stared _god damn hard_ at his lover's head.

And stared. And pretty much, you know, stared.

John has had a lot of experience being stunned into silence by Sherlock. He's by now had a good bit of exposure to being shocked or stymied or appalled or confused or pleased or amazed. So it doesn't really surprise John, this being surprised into silence thing.

Still, he does wish he could think of something to say, if only so he could get Sherlock to stop eating like that.

_(Oh the irony. John wants Sherlock to stop eating. A little.)_

Anyway, with a sigh the good doctor finally finds words marshalling themselves on his tongue. He has no idea at all what he's about to say so he opens his mouth, curious to see what happens.

"You look like…a man."

Sherlock crams another forkful of pasta into his mouth, but it's tough going being as there's already quite a lot of pasta queued up in there.

It's shameful, but John really does love it when Sherlock's ill-at-ease, nervous. It looks so wonderfully bad on him.

Gaze still on his plate, Sherlock eventually chews, swallows, takes a breath, then says in a voice striving hard to be neutral, largely failing, "A man."

Good god, Sherlock's discomfort tastes better than anything they'll eat here tonight, and as much as John wants to binge on it, he takes a last visual nibble—the tense brows, the nervous gaze, the head hung low—and then finally relents.

Sliding around the booth, until he's nearly hip to hip with his lover, he leans close, speaks very softly. "Like a…" his breath ghosts hot and gentle against the side of Sherlock's face, "…man."

Sherlock closes his eyes to John's warmth. Opens them again, whispers down at his breadsticks, "What did I look like before?"

Sure John wishes Sherlock had told him before he did this; a little warning would have been nice and minimized the heart-palpitating shock. But really the tenterhook and tiptoe? The unpredictability of living with this creature? It's part of what makes _them_ work.

John plucks up Sherlock's hand, kisses the palm, touches the center of it with his tongue. He hums a moment before answering, then says, "Mmmm…a fallen angel. A rogue. A knockout. A stunner. Androgynous and pretty and fuckable."

Finally Sherlock lifts chin from chest a little, casts a lingering side-long glance at his lover, a small smile tugging at his mouth. "And now?"

John runs his hand over Sherlock's head, over Sherlock's brand new buzz cut—"It's for a case, John," low words mumbled into his salad a half hour ago—over the _oh-my-fucking-god_ lack of glorious curls, and John tells himself that they'll grow back, they will most certainly grow back.

In the meantime he better enjoy Sherlock's repentance and contrition and the very interesting feeling of that short hair—now just a half centimeter long—against his hands (and other parts of his body).

"Now you look like a grown up. Like someone it's completely legal to…" John cups Sherlock under the table and _squeezes._ "And like someone who knows how to…" The doctor pulls the detective's head down into a kiss.

As the kiss intensifies, neither man notices that the chatty table of nine women in the opposite corner has gone quiet and that—barring curls with which to draw his lover deeper into the kiss—John is sort of tugging him close by his ears.

Well, it works.

* * *

_Inspired by a friend in need of a little ficlet, and an image of Ben with a buzz cut in _Amazing Grace (take out the spaces) http : / / 26 . media . tumblr . com / tumblr _ lhpt8zrA4D1qhsj9to1 _ 500 . png


	4. A Memory of Bees

**A Memory of Bees**

_They are everything he isn't._

He's as thin as a water reed. They're fat as striped beach balls.

His tall frame moves through the world with elegance and grace. They are ungainly little things that shouldn't be able to rise, much less fly.

He often works best alone—or with one other. They thrive in thrumming, busy hives, tens of thousands strong.

They are everything he isn't, and yet he fell in love with them long ago and loves them still, possibly the only thing he's ever cared for without doubt or reservation.

_They are more alike than you know._

Both have rare gifts. For one, it's a brain that moves as fast as fire, flashing from one possibility to another in the blink of an eye. For the other it's a gift of sticky sweetness, created with great and painstaking care.

Each creature will sting when threatened, and may hurt even those that love them. Both stings are deadly, to some.

Finally, both man and beast can be tamed, their barbs made harmless, their danger blunted—but only by a skilled and caring hand.

He dreams of being one sometimes, and these are the best dreams Sherlock's ever known. They have always been part of his memory, of his past and of his future, these little beasts, these magnificent bees.

* * *

_My first 221B (221 words, the final word beginning with 'b'). This was a bit addictive. Not as addictive as writing porn, but still._


	5. The Tip of the Tongue

**The Tip of the Tongue**

"Please," John breathes against his mouth. "Just once."

Sherlock glares at his lover in the morning light. The bed actually squeaks under the thundering weight of his frown. "_No."_

He will not do it on purpose. Not this. Not ever.

Yet for a certain very wicked doctor, hope springs eternal. Sherlock knows that John will eventually ask again, softly, sweetly, with a gleam in his eye.

The problem is that Sherlock's become a bit of a push-over for that gleam. And the giggle. Also the lip-nibble thing. Oh, and the thinky-thought way John sometimes pokes out his tongue and stares into space.

Which is the long way of saying Sherlock is worried. Worried that soon he's going to give in and, you know, _do_ it. On purpose. Because John's asked him to.

When he first met John, if you'd told him that this diminutive, unpretentious creature would not only save his life _and _intimidate him into better behavior (well, sometimes), but also easily outlast him in a test of wills, Sherlock would have done that thing everyone's always saying he does: He'd have thmirked.

_God damn it._

This is always how it thtar—begins. In his head. _In his damn head._ Then it makes its way to his mouth and then it's all over.

Sherlock glares at John, harder. "You _bathtard."_

* * *

_My __second 221B (221 words, the final word beginning with 'b'), like the first, is also motivated by Ariane DeVere, but this time it's a wee gift for her as she lisps her way through a day of dental work and Novocain._


	6. It Gets Better

**It Gets Better**

_Those five? Gay. Those three? Bullied. That one? Both. _

It's so true. If you look you really _can_ see, John thinks, eyes scanning the two hundred kids assembled in the gymnasium.

John's already done his career-day speech, now Sherlock's standing at the podium finishing his and John's still surprised Sherlock volunteered them for this. Then again…John glances at his too-tall, too-thin, too-smart, too-_different_ lover. Sherlock knows that for these kids, now, right now, at thirteen, fourteen…it's the most important time in the world.

Sherlock's turned, he's looking at him, repeating, "Anything else, John?"

John rises from his chair, goes again to the podium, veers off script. "Just one more quick thing."

The doctor looks a long while at each young face. "You _can_ do anything. And now is not forever. If you're too fat, too skinny, too short—" John gestures to himself, "—too tall, if you're gay, or think you're gay—" somehow John isn't surprised when Sherlock's hand rests lightly on top of his, "—if you're smart, not-so-smart, or just not sure what you are, leave here knowing one thing, just this one true thing: It gets better."

John tries to meet the eye of every single child he's seen slouched, cowed, uncertain, confused. "I promise you, I promise you on everything I know: _it gets better."_

* * *

___This 221B (221 words, the final word starting with 'b') was inspired by two beautiful videos on YouTube ("It Gets Better: Apple Employees" and "It Gets Better—Love, Pixar") done for The Trevor Project (thetrevorproject dot org) which is designed to prevent gay youth from committing suicide. Go watch then, please, share._  



	7. Masturbation and Your Mouth

**Masturbation and Your Mouth**

"—invaded Iraq, surely you can do this."

The second they opened their eyes Sherlock had started. Again.

"Stop saying that. Everyone says that." John tried to get out of bed; Sherlock threw a leg over both of his. "I didn't invade anything. I gave succor and aid to the fallen. I—"

Sherlock slid on top of him, straddled his waist. "You're changing the subject." Sherlock's rather prominent morning erection was on rather prominent display against John's chest. "A toothache doesn't just go away. You need to see a dentist."

John pressed a fist to his cheek. The throbbing never stopped now. But god he hated dentists.

"God I hate dentists."

Sherlock rocked his hips speculatively. "We can fix that."

John watched Sherlock's long fingers wrap around his cock. "Going to masturbate my toothache away?"

Sherlock rocked some more, slowly started fucking his fist. He watched John watch him. Then they both watched Sherlock's cock. Awhile later Sherlock panted, "Oooh-open wide, John!"

...

"Relax." The dentist smiled at him.

John scowled at her.

"This won't hurt."

John frowned ferociously.

"Let's have a look shall we?"

John bit his lips.

"Come on. Open. _Open wide_, John."

Suddenly John flushed. Smiled. He felt a phantom weight rocking on his chest. As he had done then, he did now. He opened very wide.

"Good boy."


	8. John By Any Other Name

**John By Any Other Name**

John.

That's what he calls him. That's what he almost always calls him.

And that's good, yes, of course it is. That's his name after all and it's a good name, as short, sturdy, and _right_ as the man it labels.

Yet sometimes John wishes for more.

"Like what?" Sherlock asks, slumped on the couch, pecking away at the laptop on his belly.

John stands at the window, gazes out over Baker Street; it hasn't rained in four days. A miracle. "Anything. Something. Just…an endearment now and again." John says no more. He doesn't want to push.

Sherlock hears his lover though, of course he does. And he saves what he hears. He saves everything John says.

…

It happens two weeks later.

"After you, my sweet."

Sherlock's right behind him, holding the cab's door open, his mouth near John's ear, his voice is _that_ voice, deep, sexy, soft. John's so surprised at the words and the tone that he stumbles into the cab, bangs his head against the door frame. He says nothing, wondering if he's even heard correctly.

A week later he knows he has. They're in the lab at St. Bart's. They've been there since five in the morning. Lestrade's rushed in and out all day and right now John's telling him about the two experiments they're doing.

Sherlock comes over with three steaming mugs in hand. Leaning close, his voice pitched low, as if for sex, he asks John. "Coffee, my dear?"

Again John's so startled he jabs an elbow into a brace of volumetric flasks. He takes his coffee and again says nothing while Sherlock cleans up the mess.

Four days after that, and two days after _that,_ and then just yesterday—more endearments, always when someone's near enough to hear, always in that dark voice Sherlock knows John loves.

There's a problem though.

John hates it. He feels stupid for feeling this way. Ungrateful. _Boring._

_This isn't what I meant,_ he wants to say. _I don't need you to turn me on, I don't need you to say it only when others can hear._

"I don't need you to do it," he finally says a couple nights later, in bed, in the dark.

Sherlock had done it again that evening as they stood on line at Marks & Spencer (Sherlock doesn't know how to shop, no, but he does know how to watch John shop). "Oh, we need milk, my darling," he'd said, his voice smoky.

"Do what John?" Sherlock shifts a little in the bed. John feels his gaze even in the dark.

_Be nice because I asked you to be. Say words you don't want to say._

But that's not his reply. He's not going to be ungrateful. Stupid. Boring. "I think I like it better when you just call me John." His tone is bright. Sincere. He mostly means it, after all. Mostly.

Sherlock nods, gives him a kiss, snakes his hand into John's and falls asleep.

…

It happens two weeks later.

"Good morning angel."

John's back is pressed to his lover's front, the sun's peeking through the curtains and shining in their eyes. Sherlock's words are soft, sleepy, barely breath against his neck.

John says nothing at first, distracted by the uptick in his heartbeat. After a moment he murmurs, "Morning 'Lock."

Funny thing is, they fall asleep again for another couple hours and John sort of forgets what happened. Sort of.

Another week passes. John's in front of the telly waiting for Sherlock to hurry up already. He's done his part for humanity by getting Sherlock into Top Gear and tonight's the season premiere.

"It's gonna start, get over here."

"Be right there, love," Sherlock calls back from his bedroom.

Despite having something to do with a giraffe, quicksand, and a safari, John doesn't remember the first fifteen minutes of the show. Only much, much later will he be a little stroppy with himself for that.

Later that night John makes love to Sherlock, taking the time to touch him slowly, to bite him gently, to kiss and lick and stroke with great care. He feels as if he prays, as if tonight Sherlock is a church and he a disciple.

The solemnity breaks when he makes Sherlock come a second time, just minutes after the first, and his lover yells something about ice cream.

Later still, John spooned against his back, Sherlock murmurs softly, "You're keeping me up."

They've been together long enough that John doesn't even question how—lying still, breathing steadily, saying nothing—he's able to keep Sherlock awake. He shrugs in the dark. "Sorry, can't sleep."

Sherlock waits for more. He knows there's more. More does not come, so in the shadows he nods encouragement. They've been together long enough John feels the movement; knows what it is.

"It's different now. When you say them. The endearments. But I don't know why. I'm trying to figure out why."

Sherlock twists 'round carefully in the half-circle of John's arm. Settles in so that their foreheads lightly touch.

"I ob—" Sherlock cuts himself off. He was about to say 'observed you' but he knows John's not keen on that. "I finally paid attention to what _you _say, when you say it. And to how what you say makes me feel."

John nods in the dark and so Sherlock continues.

"You're so many things to me and most of them I don't know how to explain. But you made me realize there are a few words that can make clear at least a few things. Simple words we'll both understand. And though there's nothing to hide, I also realize I don't need anyone else to hear those words, just you.

"And so now I know why and how and when to tell you that you are my sweetheart. My life. My beloved. Always and forever, you are my John."

_Written as a thank you to Anarion, this was meant to be a cuddle fic focused on Sherlock's voice. Apparently Sherlock's voice got shoved unceremoniously to the background by the cuddle. And then out of nowhere a roving brace of warm fuzzies came and elbowed both cuddle and voice aside. Dictation. If you ask me that's all a fic writer is _ever_ doing. Taking damned dictation from the voices. Shhhh, you can just barely hear them. The Voices._


	9. The God Damn Green Fairy

**The God Damn Green Fairy**

Sherlock blames the absinthe. And John. And the fucking fairy. In _that_ order.

The problem is, it never gets old. It never _will._ As long as John loves Sherlock, John'll love the lisp. He'll seek it as a hungry man seeks food, as a bored consulting detective seeks stimulation.

So when John bought the absinthe he knew it would appeal to his lover's fascination with chemicals caustic or criminal. And he was right. Glowing a mad-scientist green, the absinthe took Sherlock's indecent passion for the weird and _goosed_ it. He happily drank a glass, relishing the burn. He willingly drank another, presuming it harmless—it had a winged little fairy on the label for god's sake.

Sherlock can't say if it was the fourth glass or the fifth that put him under the table, then under John, and he honestly can't remember anything he said that night. He only knows John woke up giggling the next morning, giggled through the afternoon, and in bed that evening all he said by way of good night was, "You're right, 'Thomtimes thome perthonths find thpectactularly thtupid thtuff thexy.'" And then giggled himself to sleep.

Later Sherlock used the remaining absinthe in an experiment involving a great deal of fire. With malice aforethought he also burned that little god damn fairy right off the bottle.

* * *

_This 221B (221 words, the final word starting with B) brought to you by a friend throwing down the words purple, notebook, golfball, cucumber, and absinthe and demanding a fic from her peeps._


	10. Things Found When Unpacking

**Things Found When Unpacking**

* John's ancient mobile, over 30 years old now and quite useless.

* Three menus from Angelo's, long closed since its owner retired nearly ten years back.

* Every birthday card he's ever given his husband, even before Sherlock _was_ his husband.

* John's ancient cable-knit jumper, the warm, raggedy beige one.

* One lock of Sherlock's hair and one of John's, held together with a knot of lab tubing.

* John's first wedding ring, the one that no longer fits after last year's cancer scare and weight loss.

* A handful of keys to their old Baker Street flat.

John pauses in unpacking, watches through the window as Sherlock plays with the neighbor's dog in the front garden.

If you'd told him thirty years ago that his husband would turn into a sentimental old fool, saving so much of the random minutiae of their lives together, John would have laughed and said, "Sure, pull the other one."

Yet when they agreed it was time to retire to the cottage, trying to empty the house in preparation for the move was like pulling teeth. Every time John threw something away—an old book, another takeaway menu, a damned thirty year old mobile—Sherlock retrieved it, saying, "Oh, no, let's keep _that."_

Each time John asked why, the answer was always a misty smile, a shrug, and "Just because."

_This 221B (221 words, the final word beginning with B), is for SabrinaPhynn, who made me a charming drawing to go with the final chapter of _Skullduggery_. Thank you Sabrina, I hope this is a bit of what you wanted when you said "a little something about the boys in their early retirement days."_


	11. A Man in Uniform

**A Man In Uniform**

"Take it off, Sherlock," John hissed.

"You take yours off," Sherlock whispered.

"I asked first."

"I'm harder."

"Impossible. I'm so hard I could put someone's eye out."

At this point Sherlock scooted close, cupped John, murmured approvingly, still staring straight ahead. If John hadn't already been hard enough to poke someone's eye out, he was now.

John blames miscommunication for their current "problem." When Lestrade asked them to go undercover at this WWI memorial parade, John thought he'd be the one tromping in the uniform and tight Sam Browne belt, while Sherlock darted about deducing.

That's not what happened.

What happened was they'd showed up independently of one another, got tricked out in WWI gear, joined the procession, spotted one another and _fuck yes good god woah _when John saw Sherlock in that snug uniform he literally started kind of panting. When Sherlock noticed John his mouth fell open and sort of stayed that way.

Now they were marching round the regimental square with glorious erections, arguing about who should strip off and maybe start, you know, deducing something.

All John can say is _thank god_ for guilty consciences and the suspect's dramatic confession at the podium an hour later.

And thank god for an empty guard shack ten minutes after that. And to Sam Browne. God yes. To Sam Browne.

_This silly little 221B (221 words, the final word starting with B) is for SisterRaven, who made me some BAMF!John icons to go with cracky chapter eleven of my Feeding Sherlock fic. They're in uniform SisterRaven and there is indeed "__implied removal of same." I hope you're happy!_

_P.S. Want to see a Sam Browne belt and accompanying uniform? Let __Benedict, our own little War Horse__ show you at my Tumblr: atlinmerrick dot tumblr dot com._


	12. Getting a Toe Hold

**Getting a Toe Hold**

Damn it, Sherlock has more than his fair share of physical gifts.

There's the arch-angel good looks. A baritone that doubles as a sex aid. A brilliant brain. So doesn't it just figure that along with all that he'd also have long, wriggly, prehensile toes whose talents once known can not be…unknown.

And good lord John has known those toes. You don't want to know the ways he's known those toes. Or maybe you do. Maybe you can imagine where toes—talented toes—can go and what they can do when they get there.

The answer is _everywhere_ and oh-dear-god _everything._

They can go under restaurant tables and so surprise a battle-hardened ex-Army doc that he squeaks…then sort of _slides_ down in his chair and spreads his legs.

They, along with thighs and calves, can go over that doctor's shoulders and actually leave vivid red scratch marks on his bare back when a certain detective comes.

They can go in that doctor's mouth and turn out to be so sensitive the detective gets rock hard without anyone even touching him you-know-where.

Then there's that _other_ place they can poke in and go but for a long time John said "No, absolutely not," and then he got drunk that time and said yes and then all John could say was, "Ooooooooh _baby."_

_This 221B (221 words, the final word beginning with 'B') is for Ariane Devere, who not only got me started writing 221Bs, but also made me a kick-ass Sweary!BAMF!John icon and when I asked what I should write about for her she said…toes._


	13. Ouch: A Hurty, Cracky Little Fic

**Ouch: A Hurty, Cracky Little Fic**

"Don't, John."

"I didn't."

"You did."

"I'm standing at the foot of the bed. Unless I have tentacles, Sherlock, I didn't."

"I knew you had tentacles. I've always known."

"You're getting drunk on this. Is that possible?"

"Pain is an aphrodisiac."

"You just made that up."

"Well it appears to be true."

"Just lay there and be quiet. I am not having sex with you. Not in this state."

"I—ouch!—didn't ask. What did you just do?"

"I sat on the edge of the bed. By your feet."

"And touched me."

"I didn't touch you."

"You touched me somewhere. It hurt, so you touched me."

"Again, Sherlock, unless I'm an octopus I did not touch you."

"You should."

"I should what? Be an octopus?"

"Ha ha. You should touch me."

"You just accused me of giving you pain by touching you."

Sherlock groaned. "It hurts."

"It's going to."

"Make it stop."

"How?"

"Peel me. Like a grape."

"In time."

"Why do you keep _touching me."_

"If you say that one more time I'm leaving."

"Give me drugs."

"I already gave you drugs and look what they've done."

"Nothing, apparently."

"They've made you accusatory. Petulant. Complainy."

"And your point?"

"You're right, you're all of those things anyway."

"Touch me."

"And inconsistent."

"Please?"

"Honey, I can't."

Silence.

Silence.

Silence.

Very softly. "I like when you call me that."

"I'm glad."

Silence.

"Please put one of your nasty tentacles on me."

"Are you sure?"

"Parts of me are very sure."

Gently John did.

"Ouch."

"That was the bottom of your foot."

"It hurt anyway."

"The recetamol should kick in soon. It's much stronger than paracetamol."

Silence.

"I can feel it, John. It feels…floaty."

"Good. In a minute nothing's going to hurt."

Big, child-like sigh.

"The bottom of my foot is lonely, John."

"It has company. I'm sitting right next to it."

"That makes it happy."

"I'm glad."

"Do it again, John."

"Do what again?"

"Touch it. Please."

John did.

"Again?"

John did.

"Higher?"

Silence.

"Please?"

John slid up along the edge of the bed and John did.

"A little higher."

Very softly John did.

"A little bit…higher."

Softer still, John did.

"Yes…"

"Yes?"

"Could you…wrap your…could you put one of your nice tentacles around that bit?"

John put five little tentacles around that bit.

"Oooooh."

John stroked very gently.

"John…"

"Yes, Sherlock?"

"I like…when you…I'm floaty."

John's hand slowed.

"Feelin' better, love?"

Soft sigh. "My teeth are buzzing."

John shook his head. "You're such a push-over."

Sherlock sighed. "If by that you mean that medicaments of any sort whatsoever—from caffeine to alcohol to prescription and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals—generally seem have a powerful effect—whether as stimulant or sedative—on my bodily systems, causing me to get intoxicated, high, or floaty with alacritous ease than you're quite correct, doctor. Oh…that feels…pretty."

"Thank heaven I only gave you one."

"Tra la la."

Sherlock fell asleep for five seconds. Woke himself with his own snore.

"What?"

John said nothing.

"Why is your hand on my cock?"

"You asked for it to be there."

"I know I asked for it to be there, but it's not _doing_ anything there."

They both thought about Sherlock's penis.

"Make it move."

"My hand or your hard-on?"

"Yes."

John did.

"There's a kitten in my eye."

John continued to stroke.

"Rainbows taste funny."

John continued, gently-firmly.

"That unicorn wants to bugger me."

John's eyes widened a bit.

"Stop eating my coat, John."

John said nothing. Sherlock fell asleep. John's hand stilled. Sherlock snorted himself awake.

"The riding crop was provoked!"

"That's it. Half a pill next time."

"I feel very gay."

John grinned. "Me too. Usually."

"It's biting me."

"What is?"

"The violin. I'm hot, John."

"I'll open the—"

"I'm sexy hot, John."

"Well yes. Usually."

"Ha! Name me one time I'm not—" Sherlock fell asleep for less than one second. "—hobbit!"

Sherlock blinked, confused. "What did I just say?"

"Go to sleep love." John began rising from the bed's edge.

Sherlock grabbed his wrist. "Blue grey!"

John took his place beside Sherlock again. Lightly touched the hair at Sherlock's brow. "Go to sleep, sweetheart."

"Penis tea!"

John hesitated, then settled his hand onto Sherlock once more and started stroking.

"I need Rory's dead bees."

"Of course you do."

"Ohhhh…yeeesss…go buzzing now."

With a mental shrug John continued the slow and gentle process of carefully jerking off his lover.

"You're pretty, Johnny."

"Thank you."

"I'm pretty, too."

"That goes without saying."

"Silver sequins on the scarf!"

Distracted and amused by his lover's hallucinations, John's hand slowed.

"Jam! _Jam!"_

John's hand moved more quickly.

"It's in my ear!"

Okay, enough was enough.

John got onto hands and knees on the bed, straddled his lover and without ceremony slid his mouth down Sherlock's hot, hard, and heavy cock until it hit him in the back of the throat.

"Fire!"

Carefully touching no other part of Sherlock's body, John rocked over his sweetie, sucking and slurping noisily—

"Milk, Johnny, milk!"

—but effectively.

"Mrs. Hudson!"

John _almost_ stopped, but Sherlock's immediate response—a dolphin-like high-pitched squeal—kept the good doctor in motion.

"Trust the skull in the cab!"

John tried not to laugh but he did anyway. His breathless choking, however, felt so good to Sherlock, apparently, that the good detective thrust his hips.

"Ouch!"

"Stp mvg."

Sherlock stopped moving. But he didn't stop talking.

"Pretty hair tickle Johnny mouth."

There might have been a compliment in there. John wasn't sure. He kept sucking.

"Eight toast experiment the butter. Sing!"

John did the sort of choke-laughing thing again.

"Big bums!"

The good doctor prayed his lover would come soon or he might possibly choke to death on Sherlock's cock.

"Swear the moles and freckles!"

He'd be smiling, yes, but he'd be dead.

"Better chemicals for the teddy bear!"

Definitely only half a pill next time.

"Oh! Ooooooh."

John could feel Sherlock's cock getting harder.

"Big big big! John John John!"

John cupped, then squeezed Sherlock's balls.

"I'm going to orgasm in your mouth!"

John clamped his lips tight around Sherlock's cock, moaned softly, and breathed a sigh of relief as he felt come hit hot at the back of his throat.

Before he'd even swallowed, Sherlock was snoring.

John got off the bed carefully. Ran his fingers across his wet mouth as he looked down at his sweetheart.

"You beautiful, silly, _deeply sunburned _idiot."

The good doctor tiptoed from the room.

_I had the overwhelming desire to write silly dialog, apparently. Pretty please leave a comment, telling all of us here why _you_ think Sherlock's got a sunburn over his entire front—except his penis. Thank you._


	14. F You

**F*** You**

"Fuck you."

Sherlock was so surprised he actually dropped the beaker on the kitchen table. Fortunately it didn't so much as chip.

John didn't notice. Instead he slammed his notepad on that table, slammed the carton of milk onto the counter, and threw his mother-fucking coat onto the god damn floor. The _kitchen_ floor. "And fuck your mother for good measure, too."

Sherlock blinked. Noisily. He watched John _slam_ out of the kitchen (how he managed that, when there was no door for slamming purposes, Sherlock couldn't say), grab the remote, and throw himself into his stupid god damn fucking chair.

"And if that's not enough, you can fucking piss off twice you damn shit because who the hell asked you?"

Quiet as a ghost Sherlock drifted to the kitchen doorway.

John pointed the remote at the telly, tried turning it on. Nothing happened. "Nothing is fucking happening!" he hollered, then threw the weak-batteried device in the general direction of the fireplace.

Finally he looked up and glowered at his lover, who had the nerve to stand there all silent and shit.

"What happened? You want to know what the absolute flaming fuck _happened? _I will tell you what happened my dearest, my lone wolf, my singular consulting detective who doesn't have to deal with the arse holes of the world in any but the vaguest terms."

John paused for breath, then thought better of breathing and instead stood, grabbed the dusty bottle of scotch from the bookshelf and growled, "This better be scotch." Twisting the cap off he slammed (there's that word again), the bottle to his lips.

After a healthy swallow, a squint, and an, "Ah fuck yes," John sat back down and kicked the ottoman on general principle.

"What happened is I went to take those CME courses I was supposed to do last year." John didn't look at Sherlock's face, but he presumed the detective's ignorance because he really, really wanted to be cranky some more, "CME, CME, _CM-fucking-E_—continuing medical education, okay? All right? On the same page now?"

John took another swallow of the scotch, felt it burn, realized that the feeling was not a good one on his empty stomach, thought maybe he felt a little sick, plowed on anyway.

"I cranked through eight of them, okay? Eight of them. I was on fire. Brilliant. I was great. Then I had some weird stupid psych eval I've never even heard of, something I think that mother fucking god damn shit-for-brains pipsqueak _made up_ if you want the truth, and she failed me. She fucking god damn shit-faced fucking failed me in everything because she thought my psych eval was 'wonky.'"

Here John made violently aggressive air quotes, splashed scotch down his neck, didn't notice. "What the absolute flying god damn fuck is that? I mean I can still practice—if I ever get another job in the medical field _ever_ what with all the running around I do with you—but who the hell does she think she is fucking failing _me?_

"I mean I'm not a god damn genius like you, but I. Am. Good. Brilliant even. I am the best god damn doctor _she_ will ever know and so who does this two year old with too-the-fuck-much mascara and not enough sense think she fucking god damn son-of-a-bitch is?"

John slammed his head against the back of his chair—can you slam something a whole two inches?—slid down until his legs were spread and his back a text-book example of appalling posture and closed his eyes.

In that screamingly quiet flat—slamming and swearing leaves psychic echoes in the brain like you would not believe—nothing much happened for a good twenty seconds. Then John felt a hand on his knee and without even opening his eyes he said, "No. No. And no. I'm sorry Sherlock but absolutely not. I am so wound up right now I couldn't come for a million pounds and even if I could I'd probably put someone's eye out on general principle."

It was then, _right about then_ that John realized he had ranted for a solid ten minutes already and Sherlock had said precisely not one word. Voluble, verbose, loquacious, _mouthy _Sherlock had uttered not one syllable of commiseration, not one word of disdain.

John opened his mouth, quite possibly about to say something tart, when Sherlock did it for him.

"Fuck."

John opened his eyes. A pair in rare grey gazed back at him.

Kneeling there on the floor, Sherlock said it again, same as the first time, softly, gently, _sweetly,_ an endearment, if you will. "Fuck…_fuuuck."_

Sometimes it takes no time, as in _no time at all_ for things to change. For no to become yes. For pain to become pleasure. For 'leave me the hell alone to wallow in my annoyed pique' to become 'say it again and again and oh god again.'

Both of Sherlock's hands slid without hurry up John's thighs, and as they did the consulting detective—lone wolf, if you will—closed his eyes and said, as if asking, as if pleading just a little, "Fuck?"

All John's bluster, all his rage…it had already blown away, so much silly sturm und drang, and now it was his turn to listen, his turn to be silent.

Hands still on thighs, Sherlock bowed over John's cock—yes, bowed, that's what it is when one man lowers himself in front of another, correct?—and mouthed at John's already-there-are-you-surprised? erection.

Frankly, everyone loves biting at a hard-on through jeans and here Sherlock was in no way different from anyone else. So he growled very prettily, shook his head a little, like a pale, lanky dog worrying a very pretty boner—if you'll excuse the pun—and he _breathed_ and breathed some more, until his own face was hot, until he knew John was, too.

"God damn it," he said softly, taking hold of the tiny tab of John's zipper with his teeth, looking up through his lashes, waiting…waiting…waiting until the good doctor—the very, very good doctor, he's right, he's brilliant, he's _brilliant—_got the message.

Gently John unbuttoned his jeans, very carefully he took hold of the zipper—Sherlock did not let that tab go—and lowered it, then helped the jeans and pants follow it down.

"Son-of-a-bitch," Sherlock breathed softly over John's very lovely erection, both of them laughing a little until Sherlock's wet tongue pressed at the tip of John's cock. Then John just groaned and his lover thought it would be a good idea to echo him.

"Jesus," Sherlock said, and licked, "fucking," Sherlock added, and licked again, "Christ," he summed up, and slid his warm and talented mouth over John's hard prick.

John slid the fingers of both hands into Sherlock's hair, forgetting one hand was holding a half-full bottle of scotch—which tipped over and poured down the side of John's chair, but neither man noticed until later, when Sherlock started lisping a little from the contact high—and then ran those fingers through Sherlock's messy mop over and over as the detective bobbed that pretty head up and down, pausing now and again for appropriate punctuation.

"Fucking,"—Sherlock carefully pushed his fingers under John's balls, let them rest on his palm warm and heavy—"hell"—squeezed, breathed, moaned a little—_"fucking bloody hell."_

John had long since slid nearly all the way down in that chair, legs spread as wide as his jeans would let them, watching, listening, _very much listening,_ as Sherlock swore, as Sherlock sucked. Finally John started thrusting.

That, apparently, was Sherlock's cue.

Sherlock lifted his head a little, enough so that John could see his face, his wet lips and open mouth, his tightly closed eyes, and while he slid a slick hand up and down John's cock, Sherlock groaned, moaned, breathed, begged, "God…oh…fuck…mmmm…fuck…god damn it…oh…fuck…oh…fuck…oh…oh…_yes…yes!"_

And that was it, that was all, that was everything. John's hips started pumping hard and fast, he started coming hard and fast, and frankly, when Sherlock saw how far the ejaculate went—seriously, no kidding, you wouldn't believe it—he was very earnest and straightforward in his praise.

_"Fuck."_

_I'm fortunate to call gifted artist and writer Livia Carica my friend, so when a bad day recently left her sweary and in need of cheering, this fic was the result. It was natural that sweary Martin Freema—um, sweary John Watson star. Of course it was._


	15. Seville

**Seville**

It was like a movie. Like a soppy, rain-drenched, melodramatic movie.

Which is to say, fucking perfect.

John had been away for four days. Just four. Only four. Four measly days made up of the same twenty four hours as every other day he'd ever lived, and yet those hours, those days, they were rare, taffy-pulled. They took too long, they felt _heavy,_ they moved too slowly, felt wrong in every particular but if you'd asked John for the particulars he couldn't have said much more than, "I don't know, it's just…"

But no one asked John because John avoided just about everyone at that medical conference, the one he'd signed himself up for, the one he'd thought he'd love. The one he'd hated before he'd even reached Seville, the one he'd been so damned eager to leave he'd done just that.

He met him on the train platform, in the rain. Sherlock stood there, closer to the edge of the platform than was safe, the sky falling on his head when all he had to do was step two metres back to be under cover, safe and dry, but no, he was there, right there at the edge of safe and his hair was plastered to his head, his coat collar so sodden it couldn't stay in its usual upright and sassy position, and Sherlock looked right, looked left, over and over, the rest of him as motionless as his head was not and he searched for John in the crowd and he cursed that crowd, over and over, swearing in a way he rarely did, hissing, growling, angry that they breathed, that they milled, that they moved, that they hid John, folded the small man up with their towering, bulky bodies, their luggage and laughter and—

_John. Jooooohn._

Like a movie, did we say that part? Like a movie where one lover runs—his legs are long, and he's drenched, and if you'd told him he'd be running across a train platform and it would feel as if he moved in slow motion he would have quite possibly invented new words with which to belittle you, but he was and it did and John seemed as far away now as he did the moment Sherlock spotted him.

John didn't see him. John didn't even know he would be there because John had barely known _he_ would be there. He'd left the conference a day early and only managed to leave one voicemail for Sherlock before his mobile died.

So John didn't see Sherlock, didn't expect Sherlock, didn't understand for a split instant what was happening to him when his feet actually left the ground, and then his brain processed the sensations fast as brains can: Arms around his middle, a solid body hard against his back, and breathing so fast at his ear it might as well have been words, a language of longing so god damn clear that he knew whose mouth it was pressed against him, of course he did.

It took just a second, all that, the lifting, the smash-grab kiss to the side of his head, the putting down and the moving, Sherlock darting around John until he was in front of him, grabbing his head and kissing the top of it, then his cheeks and far more carefully his eyes.

And finally John had a chance to catch up, to smile up, kiss back, and so he did, mirroring his sweetheart, taking hold of his head and kissing first its crown, then both cheeks, then those eyes that today were in perfect concert with the grey, melancholy weather.

"Don't go," Sherlock said, as if John were only just leaving instead of coming back. And though he wanted to say it a half dozen times, maybe a thousand, possibly every morning and every night before he closed his eyes, he said it only that once, did Sherlock, and it was enough.

_Don't go._

"I won't. Not again. Not ever."

* * *

_A friend was feeling sad and asked for a 'soppy and comforting' story and this is the result, inspired by these final two entries in chapter 11 of my story "Minutiae."_

_* John's traveled the world, first as a student, then for a long while with the army. Travel agrees with him, suits his temperament. So a few months after he and Sherlock became a couple, he expected to enjoy a quick tip to Seville for a medical conference. Instead he was so powerfully homesick he couldn't, wouldn't concentrate. During the four days he was away he texted Sherlock one hundred and fifty six times, called him twelve, and emailed him three one-thousand word missives. (And with his typing skills you know how long that took.) No more conferences. No. Just…no._

_* Sherlock's never had reason to miss anyone. So the first time he and John were separated for a few days he didn't understand what was happening to him: The stomach pain; the tightness in his chest; the unrelenting tedium of the days despite an interesting case. He honestly thought he was coming down with some dramatic malady and started popping far too many of the vitamins John's always trying to get into him. It wasn't until his lover returned that Sherlock realized he'd experienced homesickness for the first time. John…John is his home now._


	16. Hornets

**Hornets**

"That dog can hear you."

"What? I can't hear you!"

"That dog. Over there."

"John! That's not a dog! It is only a guinea pig!"

"That is not a guinea thing, that's a dog and he can _hear you."_

"It's a hairless guinea pig and I have never seen a small man drink so much in so short a time!"

"It's to cope with the pain."

"I'm sorry!"

"Yes you are, you dreadful consol—constal—consulting thingy."

"John, don't be mad!"

"I'm not mad, I'm drunk."

"You're an angry drunk!"

"Not ordinarily, no."

"I'm really sorry!"

"I told you not to go over there and yet you went over there."

"I didn't know there was a hornet's nest in that suspect's backyard!"

"I did."

"You didn't say so at the time!"

"I screamed, 'Oh god Sherlock, don't go over there, dear god I'm kind of allergic fuuuuuck.' I thought that would tip you off."

Silence.

"And stop fucking shouting."

"I didn't say anything!"

"You're hollering even when you don't talk. That hairless dog is staring at you because you're vibrating at a frequency only he can hear."

"If I don't drink these caffeinated—" Sherlock squinted at the label on the can he clutched "—'energy enablers' then you're drinking alone and that makes me feel worse!"

"You should feel worse."

"John, you're really being mean!"

"I'm sorry."

"Now I feel worse!"

"I need more gin."

"John! You shouldn't!"

John looked at Sherlock with his _one good eye._

"I'm looking at you with one good eye, Sherlock. Did you notice? Because the other one? It's swollen shut. Do you see it?"

Silence.

"How about the hives all over my chest. Did you see those?"

Sherlock vibrated in apology. Loudly.

"I know that you did because you rubbed the lotion on them."

Sherlock opened his mouth—

"If you say you're sorry I am going to smite you."

"John I'm so sorry!"

"Would you _stop_ with those energy drinks already, you are speaking at sub-sonic volume at this point."

"This pub is crowded and loud! If I don't shout you won't hear me!"

"I am sitting right next to you, with my hip smashed against yours, I can hear you _aging _from this close up."

John gestured to the passing server, received an affirmative nod and a smile.

"He likes you!"

"He should. He probably knows _I _listen when my boyfriend tells me things."

Silence.

"My feet feel big."

"I listen!"

"Really big."

"I do!"

"Floppy kinda."

"I wish it had been me!"

"Can you make them smaller?"

"They'll be smaller tomorrow!"

The server brought the drinks. John saluted him with his G&T. Sherlock possessively threw his arm around the good doctor's shoulder so spastically that half the G&T poured down John's chest.

"—two, three, four…What comes after four?"

"—fi—"

"Because once I get to ten I'm killing you."

"Let's go home! I'll make you anything you like! Gin and tonics all night! Toast! I'll even make you come! Ten times if necessary!"

Sherlock was correct, the pub was noisy. But judging by the eighteen pairs of eyes—nineteen if you count the guinea pig that was, indeed, at the end of the bar—apparently everyone could hear _that._

Sherlock only noticed that the server was eyeing John again. The consol—constal—consulting thingy leaned over their booth table and _vibrated _at the man very hard.

"Stand down, Sherlock."

Maintaining eye contact with the sixteen stone server, Sherlock just lowered his caterpillary eyebrows dramatically and oscillated a little harder.

"You know what's going to happen Sherlock? He's going to come over here and beat _me_ to a pulp. Because I'm small. I am very, very small." John wiggled his feet. "With giant hairy feet. They're fucking huge."

Sherlock threw stabby thoughts at the server. Or the guinea pig. At this point it was hard to tell. "Your feet are fine John!"

"Stop yelling at the hairless dog."

"Let me take you home!"

"No. I am going to sit here and press cold G&Ts to my one good eye and get drunk."

"You are already drunk! And I can't have any more of these over-caffeinated drinks or I might break into my component parts!"

"Then drink with me. No one cares if you lisp. Or you can go home. I'll be along eventually."

"I am not leaving you here with _that_ thing!"

"The hairless dog is—"

"The server! The server! The man who wants to put you in his pocket like a snack for later!"

"You're jealous."

"Of course I am! Look at you! You're so adorable even the guinea pig can't stop staring!"

"You know if my eye wasn't swollen shut and my chest wasn't covered in sticky pink cream, and if I wasn't drunk and also mad at you and if I didn't have such _fucking enormous_ feet I would probably kiss you right now."

Sherlock saw his chance. He'd show that server John was completely not into him and his burly muscles or retrousse nose or beautiful brown skin or blindingly bright teeth.

"Kiss me John!"

Eight of those previous eighteen pairs of eyes swiveled toward them. Someone got out a camera.

John blinked down at his feet. Had they always been that gargantuan? Or had _he_ stepped on the hornets' nest? And speaking of angry bugs, why'd they sting _him_ and not Sherlock? That hardly seemed sporting. They probably picked on the little guy, too.

John blinked his one good eye and scratched his hives. "Someone should kiss _me_," he sighed, morose.

John knows that Sherlock will do almost anything, almost anywhere, at almost any time. So it didn't surprise him what Sherlock did next, no. It aroused him, yes, which surprised him. He would have thought he'd be a bit shy about it in public. Apparently not.

"I'm so sorry, John," Sherlock said soft against his ear.

"I'm so sorry, John," Sherlock said as he slid from their tiny booth.

"I'm so sorry, John," he said as he went to his knees in the aisle.

"I'm so sorry, John," he said before he ducked his head under the long cloth draped over their table.

And then John couldn't hear or see much of anything down below but he could feel Sherlock's hands cradling his foot, feel the pressure of Sherlock's mouth as he kissed the toe of his shoe. He could also feel the extremely lively response of his cock because _hello._

For a long, I'm-a-bigger-man-than-this moment John thought about tugging Sherlock out from under that table and saying something lovely, like, "Stop prostrating yourself before me, you beautiful man. This isn't necessary, this penance. I know the price of being with you and that includes bees, hornets, moulds, certain poisonous aerosols, dead maggots in my tea, and once-in-awhile a nicotine patch mysteriously migrating from your arm to my bum when we're in bed. Also, my feet are fucking colossal and this could take all day."

However, John did not say any of this, he merely closed his eyes and concentrated on the extremely gentle, almost delicate way Sherlock lifted his foot in cupped hands, the soft pressure of that mouth as it inched up his shin, and on the fact that the endorphins currently having a party at the surface of his skin had managed to completely deaden the pain of the eight separate hornet stings scattered about his person, except for the one just left of his eye. That one still hurt like a mofo.

Vaguely aware that Sherlock's migration north would verge on public indecency should his head pop out from under the cloth, somewhat aware that he did not wish to have another ASBO, and keenly aware that the only sane resolution to all of this would include someone's cock firmly up someone's arse, John slammed back the rest of his G&T and slid like a boneless thing under the table.

For awhile the only thing anyone could see was the underside of Sherlock's shoes sticking out from under the long cloth, as they had been all along. When those disappeared about ten minutes in the only thing anyone could see was a few random jabs at the cloth—elbows? knees? the erection of a very flexible man? And finally, about ten minutes after that when everyone (believe it or not) had more or less forgotten about them, the only thing anyone could see was the hairless guinea pig at the end of the bar getting _extremely_ alert and a little bit excited. As if perceiving something only she could hear.

_There is no reason for this fic other than I wanted to revisit the silliness of "__Ouch: A Hurty, Cracky Little Fic."_ _It's nowhere near as daft as that story, but I also needed an excuse to post a photo of the hairless little guinea pig that was at the end of that bar (atlinmerrick dot tumblr dot com). Because, seriously, wouldn't you write 1450 odd little words for that face?_


	17. A Crazy Little Cock Race

**A Crazy Little Cock Race**

Sherlock was bored. Sherlock's often bored. This time, however, John was bored, too.

They were both bored because there was no case, there was nothing but crap on telly, it was raining as if an ark was in the vicinity, and badly done road work on Baker Street meant severed cable lines and therefore no internet.

So honest to god both Sherlock _and_ John were laying with their legs up over the back of the sofa, their heads hanging off the ends of the cushions and—dear sweet baby Jesus tell no one—they were having a wanking contest. As in, yes, seeing who could take the longest getting there. Shockingly John won that one, but only by cheating; he'd said the filthiest thing he could think of at a critical juncture even though they weren't supposed to be doing anything more than moaning and groaning.

Not even five seconds after he ejaculated all over his own belly Sherlock demanded a new contest, this time to see who could get there faster.

It'd be natural to think that the five year age difference between them would give Sherlock a slight advantage with getting hard again, and, you know, coming, but right now, at five and a half minutes in, it looked like John was going to win this one as well.

Frankly he thinks it's the head-hanging-off-the-edge-of-the-sofa thing that's doing the trick because honestly the rush of blood to the head has John feeling sort of drunk, with all the giddy lack of inhibitions alcohol provides, but without the cock-killing properties.

Except it was also making him dizzy and he kept getting distracted by Sherlock's serious-intense-sweaty-blushy sex face and then by Sherlock's hands working so frantically between his own legs and _then_ by Sherlock's cock—damn it was as big (bigger?) the second time as the first—and _then _by the pretty, drippy, oozy, pretty (did he say that already?) precome that really needed his mouth to appreciate it properly and then—

—John groaned loud enough as he came that even the electrician down on Baker Street—working in the rain, yes, to fix the stupid cable, yes, heard him. Dear sweet baby Jesus tell no one but she wrote '221B Baker' in the margin of her log sheet and made a mental note to see if she could figure out who lived there and whether or not he was single.

Well clearly he's not, but be that as it may, Sherlock was so miffed that John won the _second _wanking contest that the good doctor very nearly _became_ single on general principle. Well, for a little bit.

Fortunately John's apology—bending over the back of the sofa, presenting his bum for the enjoyment of any consulting detectives that might wander by—went far toward making sure that that electrician had absolutely no chance in hell.

It didn't hurt that Sherlock stayed hard so long—twenty-eight minutes, he timed it—that John was a gibbering, begging mess by the time Sherlock finally came. Really, really hard.


	18. Grace

**Grace**

Sherlock's graceful. He didn't used to be. A thin man doesn't grow that tall without a gangly phase. An unwieldy, graceless, bruised period.

Sometimes Sherlock's body remembers those days. That's when Sherlock trips, and once, he fell.

John watched it in slow motion, the tumble, the gloved hands flying up, Sherlock's shin cracking into the curb. The doctor was sure something was broken but at the time Sherlock was snockered, ratted, stone-cold drunk on the chase—they'd been after this one a month—and he just popped back up and ran on.

Only later, when he was so crippled with pain he couldn't walk, did they learn he'd nearly split the bone in two.

Tending Sherlock's wound John didn't tut-tut. Didn't demand greater care. Said nothing about how this could have been much worse.

John knows people are frustratingly grand things, capable of so much precisely because they often take no care, because they leap first, check the proximity of the ground later. We fly because sometimes we don't fear falling.

So John didn't tell Sherlock to slow down, let someone else chase and catch. Instead he said, "Let me help," and over time he taught Sherlock how to do just that. Until then no one else had. Possibly no one else could.

John's graceful, did we say? He's always been.

_A 221B—two hundred twenty one words, the final word beginning in 'B'. This one's dedicated to ACD. He couldn't have foreseen what we'd do with his graceful heroes, but I'd like to thank him just the same._


	19. The Skull

**The Skull**

He'd found her at her own crime scene, of course, then solved her case in just a day. A patient, mistaking possessiveness for love, had taken the therapist's life, then failed to take her own.

Thing is, right from the start Rory—psychologist Aurora Aurelia Abbington to the tax collector—had known how damaged her client was. And from the start she'd understood the risks of getting too close to crazy.

Didn't matter.

What mattered to Rory—then and now—was the puzzle_._ Every patient's pain was a mystery and the clues to its cause were everywhere, sometimes hidden in plain sight, sometimes buried deep. Rory knew how to find those clues. Always had.

So was it any wonder her dead bones called him? That the second Sherlock held Rory's skull he knew he'd steal it? Before Mrs. Hudson or John it'd been just him and her, the detective and the dead woman, the thinker and the therapist. They understood one another, always had.

He once asked Rory if she missed being alive—yeah, she hears him and he her, have a problem with that?—but he knew the answer.

_Hell no. This is easier, harder, more interesting. You? John? Each mystery? It's what I was born for. I'm surprised as you baby, but this? This is better, _so much better.

_If you've read my fics "All That Glitters" and "Skullduggery" you know the skull talks—and Sherlock and John listen. This is just a teensy glimpse of Rory's story, which I hope to tell in a fic some time soon. Until then, this was Rory's 221B—two hundred twenty one words, the final word starting with B._


	20. FairHaired Boy

**Fair-Haired Boy**

"It's so…_long."_

John sighed, pushed into Sherlock's hand harder. "God…that feels…so good."

Long fingers spread, curved, then Sherlock's hand slowed. "I could do this to you all night."

John writhed under the bed covers, growled, pushed against Sherlock harder still. "God, yes please."

For every fervent thrust of John against him, Sherlock's touch lightened. Oh how he did love to torment, to tease, to—

"Harder, Sherlock…more."

—hear his lover plead.

"Again," the lanky man whispered, fingers ghosting over his sweetheart so softly it made him keen.

"You…" John groaned, "—oh yes right there—" he briefly bit his lips, "…love to make me…" another small moan, "—I could come, right now I swear I could, oh Jesus—" but he didn't "…beg, don't you?"

Sherlock tugged the blankets up over their heads with one hand—"Always"—then dug the fingers of both into John's hair again.

The good doctor giggled in relief, "I could die right now and be quite happy. Oh you have no idea how good this feels."

Sherlock continued massaging John's head, loving how very long the sandy hair had grown over the winter.

"Maybe you could let it grow even more," Sherlock said against John's forehead, "my little pirate, my barbarian." Sherlock laughed softly then whispered, "John?"

The only answer was his lover's gentle breathing.


	21. High Horse

**High Horse**

It was grim determination that got John through college maths, yet the equation in front of him was simple enough:

Sherlock + Horse = John Sort of Hung Like One

So to speak. If we're being candid. A wee bit tactless. But oh so god damned truthful.

And John hadn't seen it coming. You never do, do you—the arrival of a new kink? But the proof was here, right in his lap, a raging hard-on as big as a horse. So to speak.

He'd been fine when they got to Great Scotland Yard, home of the Met's mounted police. And really he'd been fine watching Sherlock explain—with the help of a sleek black mare—how the jewel thief had employed as her get-away-car a get-away-steed.

But then Sherlock got _on_ that dark horse and he'd looked so damned princely and strong and kind of small—a whole confusing array of delicious—that John begged a chair damned quick, sat right the hell down, and prayed no one had seen his beauty of a boner.

Well someone did, of course, and his initials may or may not be SH. All John knows is about a week later his sweetheart gave him a provocative gift, one never meant for any steed: specially-fitted reins, a bridle, and a bit. _Oooh baby._

_Random Nexus inspired this 221B. When she saw the teaser for season two she swore the boys were on horses. The image made both of us briefly speechless, sort of flaily. Queue porn. Of course. _Always_ queue porn._


	22. In a Jam

**In a Jam**

"I am going to die."

"You're going to live."

"Why did you let me do that? You're my doctor. You're not supposed to let me hurt myself."

"I'm your doctor. I'm supposed to _heal_ you after you've hurt yourself."

"What happened to preventative medicine?"

"If you're well enough to whine, you're not that sick."

"Say that after you've put roses on my grave."

"Roses?"

Silence.

"Because I didn't think you were a flowers sort of man."

Silence.

"Much less fussy little roses. But then again you are a fussy man, so—"

"Shut up John, I'm busy dying over here."

"Budge over."

Sherlock made room on the bed.

"I told you not to eat so much."

"You're usually telling me I don't eat enough."

"Because usually you aren't."

"Make up your mind soon because I want to know what I'm dying from, please. Hurry however, I see a bright light."

Silence.

"And a tunnel."

Silence.

"Was it worth it?"

Thoughtful silence.

"Yes it was. It was an experiment."

"You ate so much of Mrs. Hudson's bridge partner's fresh jam that you have a tummy ache—for an experiment?"

"Yes."

"And the results?"

"All the jams were very good—the apricot, strawberry, loganberry. The one my very annoying, very mean doctor's cock will be wearing soon, however, is boysenberry. Definitely the boysenberry."

_This 221B (221 words, the final word starting with 'b') was written for the wonderful Kirakira Nanoda, who had her a tummy ache, so Sherlock got one, too. I think she needs to budge over so the detective can snuggle._


	23. Coming Together

**Coming Together**

"At Lin's birthday party, Sherlock…_really?"_

"I haven't seen you for a week, John. Seven days—168 hours—it's unfeasible to wait any longer."

"Sherlock, Harry and Lin paid for this hotel room—we've got to at least go down and say hello."

"Oh, we'll _go down_, John."

"Sherlock."

"In twenty minutes."

"Sherlo—"

"Thirty. Thirty minutes."

"Sher—"

"An hour."

"Sh—"

Sherlock swarmed close, pushing his tongue into John's mouth. A while later he purred, "Exactly right…shhhhh."

This time John didn't say anything. But he did a whole hell of a lot.

Sliding one hand down Sherlock's pants, he tugged his lover into a kiss with the other, then maneuvered those short but nimble legs until he had his sweetheart on the rug.

"John."

A few seconds more and trousers and pants were gone, and—

"John."

Moments more and long bare legs were spread wide, and—

"John."

The good doctor looked up, mouth wide open…

"The… uh…DeVere Hotel…has…"

…pressed his tongue to his bottom lip…

"…p-perfectly good…beds."

…pooled soft breath over a hard detective.

This time Sherlock said nothing.

Ninety-eight minutes and three orgasms later, John straightened Sherlock's tie, and smiled. "Well you look very smug, my love."

Sated, well-shagged, and more than a little sex-drunk, Sherlock grinned widely. "I should. I've got carpet Burns."

_Verity Burns, Ariane DeVere, and Atlin Merrick: This 221B has three authors, and all our names show up in this wee fic—can you find each of them? (Mine is tricky.) What I love about this is it played perfectly to our writerly strengths: Verity came up with the plot and wrote the first two lines. I wrote the porn, of course. And Ari came up with the clever, perfect final sentence. We laughed ourselves sick writing this. Wine and ungodly amounts of caffeine may or may not have played a part._

_While those two chased sobriety out the door and I got liquored up on so much cola my eyelids wouldn't shut, we each wrote a different report on how this fic came together, so now what you need to do is go read the author notes on Ari's page and Verity's page, and tell them they should write with me all the time._

_And if you've come to the conclusion that this author's note is as long as the fic you're correct. Verity, who can't write short to save her own damn life, completely accidentally wrote an author's note of 221 words. Inspired, Ari then did so on purpose and ended hers with B. I then shrugged, followed the cool kids, and said, "Ah fuck, to hell with brevity."_


	24. Impatient

**Impatient**

John is a patient man. He's also a doctor. So you'd think John would be good in a hospital waiting room.

You would be wrong.

They said the surgery was minor. (No surgery is minor.) It would be less than an hour. (It was two.) They were just removing a half dozen 'worrisome' moles. (The end total was thirteen.)

John was good at first. He kept his shit together until Sherlock was taken away, but then? Oh god John was an absolute fuck.

Dr. Watson has never snapped at a nurse. Mr. Watson? Good lord. He snarled about the wait. He bitched about the coffee. He swore when a doctor dropped a chart. He read the riot act to an orderly who sneezed into her hands.

By the end of the first hour John's hair was sticking up in five directions, he'd scalded his tongue, and had repeatedly apologized to the staff. By the second hour he'd called every one of them terrible names again, and kicked a vending machine. Twice.

Finally his lover emerged, a little woozy but in classic Sherlock form—"Oh no," he told the surgeon, "I'll remove the sutures myself; I have several Westcott stitch scissors at home."

That's when John finally began doing the one thing he'd forgotten to do: He started at last to breathe.

_Recently a friend had to wait for a loved one in a hospital waiting room. She passed the time by reading Sherlock porn. Since John can't do that (or can he?) I wondered exactly how the good doctor would cope. A bit not good was my conclusion._


	25. Eye Candy

**Eye Candy**

Eye candy: The phrase can mean several things.

To John Watson, in love with a beautiful man, it can mean seeing that man's long body tricked out in snug jeans and a button-down shirt that's a little too tight.

It can mean seeing him pad around the flat bare-chested when it's hot, or he's forgotten to do laundry again, or just because he knows John likes it.

It can also mean watching that man strut in black high heels, run a fingertip over his own nipple, or slide low on the sofa, legs spread, masturbating under John's unblinking gaze.

To Sherlock Holmes, who would never, not ever, not once _use_ the silly phrase, eye candy might refer to the chocolate ganache at Café Concerto, the one with a pretty lace of brittle toffee.

Or it could mean the hot gooseberry compote from the Holly Bush, the one top-heavy with a dark and buttery crumb.

Or maybe it could mean the careful creation of cream and caramel the flirting barista constructs over Sherlock's coffee some cold London mornings.

Yes, eye candy can have a few definitions, really. Yet, no matter which resonates with you, the thing that unifies them is that you must come in close, very close, and you must taste, most definitely touch…and then, my dear, you must _bite._

_Written on the slopes of Hampstead Heath, because one should always write porn on the soft green expanse of the Heath's grass._


	26. Rory

**Rory**

I'm a skull. A bone. Little more than brittle calcium and phosphorus and sodium. I'm sharp-featured and pale, wide-eyed and wan. I'm inclined to loquaciousness and will talk your ear clean off if given a chance.

I am a companion, a mirror, a muse. I am here, in this flat. With my boys. I am their helpmeet, their conscience, their friend.

In exchange for solving my mystery, I help them solve theirs. They talk to me at midnight, we confabbed at noon, when they are stumped I suggest, when I am depressed, they divert.

I am seldom depressed. For these men are peerless creatures, fearless. They do not bind themselves to common mores, to convention, to shame. They're bound only to each other and even from this remove—without body or brain or voice—their passion one for the other is a fire that warms me right through.

They are rare and they are mine and I will be forever theirs.

I'm more than the sum of my parts—ramus, mandible, maxilla, volmer. I am dead, it's true. But in truth I have never been so alive. This? Here and now? Believe me that this is everything I need. It's all that I want. It is my life. It is my reason. It is my purpose.

It is just my beginning.

_Love Rory. Love her. Never will not write Rory. Want to kiss her on her ever-grinning mouth. (This is a 221B, by the way—221 words, the final word beginning with B.)_


	27. Christmas Shopping, I Swear

**Christmas Shopping, I Swear  
**

"Now say 'Thank you,' Sherlock."

Sherlock opened his mouth.

"If you add the 'Sherlock' to that thank you I will—" John lowered his voice, "—god damn thrash you."

Sherlock closed his mouth.

"I'm sorry love," John said at normal volume. "It's just that I have had it up to—" John lowered his voice again, "—fucking here with the holiday crowds, and the noise, and the shoving."

Sherlock tilted his head to the side.

"And the perfumes and colognes. I mean my god are they—" John whispered low, "—god damn piping them through the duct work? I can barely breathe."

Sherlock pursed his lips.

"I don't know why we didn't just buy all of this—" John sort of growled, dropped his voice, "—sodding junk online."

Sherlock steepled his fingers, rested his chin on their tips.

"Seriously, it makes me almost—" John took a deep breath, dropped his voice, "—bloody well weep that we're buying _perfume_ for Molly's cat, a _Mulberry_ phone case for Mrs. Hudson, and a _velvet _bow tie for your brother."

John stood as tall as he gets.

"But I know, fine, they don't need it which is the entire—" John waved his arms dramatically as if being contradicted, dropped his voice, "—fucking point, but I…never mind. _Never __mind."_

Sherlock did not mind.

"Okay, are we done here? If you are done dragging your—" John gestured dramatically at Sherlock's lower regions, dropped his voice. "—damned arse, please say thank you so that we can _go."_

They both turned toward a perfectly lovely Harrod's sales associate, who was only one single metre away and who, as such, had heard every word John said, all of them, including _god__damn, __fucking, __god__damn, __sodding, __bloody, __fucking _and _damned. _She smiled pleasantly and handed Sherlock a small green shopping bag.

Sherlock took the bag politely.

"Thank _you,"_ John said curtly, grabbing his lover's hand and pretty much yanking him out of the store.

A word of advice: Do not take John Watson shopping a few days before Christmas. Honestly, he gets very, very sweary and sometimes turns into a bloody little shit.

_This silly vignette brought to you for no other reason than because I think John would totally do this. I just do not think he'd be a very good shopper. (P.S. Teeny Christmas-y/porny Advent fics on mah Tumblr: atlinmerrick. tumblr. com/tagged/sherlock-porn-advent-calendar-2011_


	28. More

**More**

"You're going to be a chubby old man, my love."

Dr. John Watson's seen many naked bodies over many long years. He knows what hungry thinness looks like, can recognize leanness borne of disinterest or abstinence. And he can predict, with irksome accuracy, who'll put on weight as they age.

Perhaps only John believes Sherlock will be one.

Sherlock looks up from the pasta he's eating and the coffee he's drinking, both cooked up with a liberal dose of sweeteners. He'll eat more that way, John knows.

In some respects Sherlock's a vain man. He loves the cut of his own jib, the drape of his coat, the brilliance of his brain. But about his body and the coming years he has no illusions.

"Quite likely. And a grumpy one."

John understands. No more flying down night-dark alleys; no more taking wing from fire escapes; London seen at two miles an hour instead of ten. The years only ever go forward, even for consulting detectives.

The good doctor smiles toward that future. "I like the idea of more. More time to see things instead of run by them. More you. Nothing could ever be bad about more you."

Sherlock hadn't really intended on finishing his meal, much less having another plate. But suddenly he found himself wanting to do both.

_A 221B for Livia Carica, who wanted something about chubby Sherlock. I was aiming—go figure—for _more_, but this is the wee story that wanted to be told._

_P.S. Will get back to publishing longer or multi-chapter !smutty! fics after the new year. In the meantime, do please share your thoughts—what would you like to read?_


	29. My Sentiments, Exactly

**My Sentiments Exactly**

John put flowers in Sherlock's hair.

You can do virtually anything to the consulting detective when he's got a new issue of _Forensic Pathology Today._ Seriously.

So stretched out on their bellies in Regent's Park, John hums softly to himself and places tiny white daisies in Sherlock's hair as his sweetheart reads. A lazy hour later Sherlock says, "You're a sentimental creature, John Watson."

And John says, "No I'm not."

...

The soup has honey in it. The tea has brown sugar. The toast has quite a bit of both.

John knows Sherlock eats better, eats _more_ if what he eats is sweet. So John makes things sweet. Sherlock takes a taste, a sip, a bite. "Sentimental, John. You are so."

The good doctor shakes his head, "No, not really."

...

Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries: For the most important celebrations really only one restaurant will do.

"Angelo's again, John? Why?"

"You know why."

Sherlock raises an elegant brow. "Our first date."

John grins wide. "Of course."

"You're a sentimental man, John Watson."

John shrugs, glances away, murmurs. "Maybe. Just a little. No more so than anyone else."

Sherlock's pale fingers rest on top of the silver ring on John's left hand.

"I never said it was bad. It isn't. It's you, John. For all our years together, it's who you've always been."

_In a post-Reichenbach world, Atlin's John and Sherlock will not change. There's no Moriarty here, no rooftops, no sacrifices other than the small ones two men who love each other will make every day... And on that note, proper porn again probably on Thursday but _guaran-fucking-teed _by Monday. Promise. In the meantime, tell me: how you are?_


	30. Partners in Crime

**Partners in Crime**

_****__(A wee fic with four authors. Read the story—can you guess which one of us wrote which 221B?—then go read the multiple author's notes (if you're on LJ).)_

The swearing was now becoming so impressive that Mrs. Hudson hadn't ventured upstairs for two days. John had long run out of all the phrases he learned in the army and was making up new ones which were so creatively inventive that Lestrade, dropping off the packages Sherlock had requested, stopped at the top of the stairs to take out his police issue notebook and write some of them down for future use.

Sherlock as usual was oblivious to the noise; he had had one conversation in the last three days, demanding the copious notes he had dictated two hours previously. As John hadn't even been home during the dictation, he had been hopeful that the ensuing argument would eventually lead to some angry and energetic shagging. Regrettably the good doctor's hopes were dashed when Sherlock was inspired as to the identity of one of the perpetrators and turned away to text Lestrade.

This new case required hardly any legwork but involved a great deal of rifling through files, running experiments and researching information online, which left John nothing to do but gaze at his lanky lover's profile in increasing sexual frustration.

But dear God if he didn't get a certain detective inside him today of all days he was going to take the skull hostage and send it back broken.

…

The thing is, if John would just stop swearing so creatively, and pounding around the flat, and acting so indignantSherlock was sure he'd have finished this sodding test—

The detective paused, blinked down at his pipette-laden hands.

Well that was interesting. John had so keyed him up Sherlock was actually sympathy swearing in his own head. The detective frowned. This wouldn't do. He had to complete this bloody (no seriously, it was literally bloody) final experiment soon or Mrs. Hudson's work would be for nothing.

Blood, blood, he was used to _human_ blood, but this…wombats might look like fat rats, but their haemoglobin certainly didn't respond to etherocite the way rat's blood did, and the zookeeper's alibi hinged on—

"—you pissing barmy berk; bugger whore dick shit arse—"

John stomped through the kitchen and into their bedroom, slammed the door, taking the rest of his thoughts with him.

Frankly that was fine, just fine. Now maybe Sherlock could finally focus and finish the—

"—it's fucking naff is what it is and—"

John was now careening around the sitting room and so help him Sherlock was sure the man was simply picking things up so he could slam them down again. At this rate Sherlock would never finish the sodding experiment in time to—oh. _Oh. _Bingo!

…

_I want to bite it…_John squeezed his eyes shut in a desperate attempt to focus on something other than the delectable arse waving in front of him.

"Lost something?" he demanded, struggling to stay in his chair and not just fling himself in the direction his dick clearly felt was magnetic north.

"No, John. I'm just crawling around down here because I know you like the view." Sherlock's voice issued from under the table, where he had been scrabbling around since firing off some frantic texts a few minutes before. He emerged quite suddenly, springing up into a familiarly button straining pose.

John reminded himself that he didn't want to change Sherlock. Not really. The 'on case' behaviour had long since been accepted and John was used to being ignored, experimented on, and generally treated as a whipping boy.

Didn't mean he had to like it. Not today. Enough was _e-fucking-nough_. He got to his feet.

"You need to either solve this case in the next ten minutes, or take a sodding break." He took a pace forward, eyeing the terrain and determining the best angle at which to tackle his infuriating lover. "Fuck it, I can't wait ten minutes."

Sherlock's lips twitched. "Ten seconds will suffice." He raised his phone to his ear. "No disturbances, as agreed. Thank you, brother."

…

"Did you just _thank_ your brother?"

Sherlock looked at John, who suddenly seemed more stunned than aroused.

"You _know_. Of course you know. They are all in on it, aren't they? Lestrade, Mrs. Hudson, even your brother. "

Up until a few months ago Sherlock would have told you very convincingly that there was nothing he did not know about himself. Since then he discovered a lot of things, amongst them that an angry and swearing doctor turned him on immensely. Only surpassed by said doctor deducing a certain detective's actions.

Sherlock raised one eyebrow and stepped closer to John.

"Go on."

"You _were_ crawling around down there because you know I like the view."

Sherlock moaned.

He saw the other man's eyes widen slightly and felt the atmosphere shift.

Without warning John growled and then tackled them both onto the sofa.

Sherlock immediately pushed his hand down his lover's front, John being so wound up that he was clinging to him quivering and moaning within seconds.

A few slow strokes, hands clinging, a groan – _more _– a few fast strokes and John was shuddering violently under Sherlock's touch before falling limply against him.

Sherlock slowly rubbed his still untouched erection against John's hip.

"Let's go to bed and do what you've been thinking about the whole day."

He grinned.

"Happy birthday."

_It was my birthday this past weekend. I turned sixteen and newly hormonal apparently, if what comes out of my mouth regarding Benedict Timothy Carlton Cumberbatch is any indication of my true age. But really that's beside the point…_

_Um, the point is this: I got to spend my birthday with three and a half wonderful writers: Anarion, Ariane DeVere, and Verity Burns (Mirith Griffin was the half because she was able to attend only in spirit this time). As if that were not enough—and it was—I was gifted with all kinds of lovely Sherlock booty, from t-shirts to bags to bumcakes (er, cupcakes with Creature!Ben's bum). As if that were not enough—and it was—we all were able to watch Reichenbach together in mutual misery and tentative, flaily joy._

_And as if _that_ were not enough—really, truly, it was all right, it _was_—we then decided to each write 221Bs along a common theme put the four 221Bs together into a story (and write individual author's notes that are _also_ two hundred and twenty one words) then not tell you who wrote which section. Can you guess which 221B is Anarion's, Ariane's, Verity's, and mine? Do tell—then read their notes!_

_All right, I'll finish this up by saying in summary: My birthday this year? Brilliant._


	31. Sensational

**Sensational **

Most people have no clue they exist.

Sherlock's known about them since he was sixteen years old and found one in a charity shop. It cost him twenty pence and he still can't tell you why he bought it.

Oh, Sherlock's slow-developing sex drive could have offered a thought on the matter, but the future consulting genius went and half-strangled the thing into somnolescence that very year, leaving it safe for him to insist that this—and subsequent similar purchases—were merely for research.

Anyway, Sherlock walked quite awhile with his acquisition that summer day. Destination? Unknown. He'd recognize the spot when he got there.

And then there it was: Russell Square, a small park not very far from the British Museum.

Sherlock nodded to no one in particular. Took an empty bench. Switched his find from left hand to right and back again. Then he simply opened the damn thing and started reading.

Even at sixteen Sherlock already owned hundreds of books, covering everything from botany to chemistry, anatomy to true crime. This particular tome would be the first of its kind to join his extensive library but it wouldn't be the last. As a matter of fact Sherlock's collection would eventually include an immense array of gay romance novels. Or, as unimaginative fools are forever unimaginatively calling them, bodice-rippers.

_Yes, this is classing romance novels with sensational literature, of which Arthur Conan Doyle says Sherlock has immense knowledge. I crave pardon. Also, I'm in love with the idea of sixteen year old Sherlock reading romance novels. P.S. A few might recognize this 221B as one I wrote in the comments of one of my fics a little while ago. Anyway, here it is now, with my other wee stories._


	32. Soft

**Soft**

John is soft so many places Sherlock's not.

Sitting cross-legged on their bed, coping with a bout of insomnia by watching his sweetheart sleep, Sherlock brushes fingertips over his lover's lips.

_John's mouth._

Even when he means to be sympathetic, Sherlock's words often emerge sharp, harsh, wrong. John doesn't share this curse, quite the opposite: Even when he's angry the small man is sometimes restrained, careful, too damn_ kind._

Sherlock grins when, even in sleep, John's ever-questing tongue darts out for a quick swipe at his lips.

_John's hair._

Sherlock has the prettier mop, no question, and while his dark curls are good for an army doctor to grip in strong fists, they're nothing like that doctor's sandy mane.

Sherlock runs long fingers through the short crop of hair and is, as always, soothed by its staticky softness.

_John's face._

There are here a few angles, especially at John's jaw and chin, but even those are muted compared to Sherlock's bold sharpness. Instead John's face is rounder, more lined, prone to speaking for him when yet again he's held his sweary tongue.

As he's done dozens of times, Sherlock brushes fingers at the deep groove between John's brows and hopes, again, he's not the one making it deeper.

_John's hands._

The good doctor, _being_ a good doctor, has made sure to keep the skin of his hands soft. The last thing a teary toddler getting a booster jab needs is to feel the scrape of a nail or the rasp of calluses.

Sherlock's never told him (John knows anyway), but sometimes Sherlock rubs lotion on his own experiment- and scar-rough hands, hoping his lover will find his touch a little less coarse.

_John's belly._

Here Sherlock finally sighs, stretches out on his stomach, his face hovering just over John's middle. He dips his sharp-featured face down, brushes his mouth across the flesh of John's belly, feels it give a bit.

This is his favorite of John's softnesses, the place on his lover's body that's both sexual—fast as a flickering smile, Sherlock sees himself straddling this stomach, rutting against it, shaking as he comes—and the softness here is like…it's like…

Sherlock presses his face against John's soft body, closes his eyes when he feels his lover's hand drift gently to his head.

…home.

_Livia Carica has a soft spot for Martin—um, John's tummy, so when insomnia was making her miserable, I thought this might help the waking hours pass a little more…softly._


	33. Anarion

**Anarion**

"I'm sorry."

Sherlock continued striding across Waterloo Bridge at a brisk clip, his pique so great that the voluble creature said absolutely nothing.

"It was harmless."

Before the woman had said the first word to him John knew it would come to this. And _this_ was Sherlock in a snit and silent yet completely managing to say with that retreating back _I refuse to even acknowledge your existence and by the way you will so regret this in three, two…_

"One coffee, Sherlock. She bought me _one_ coffee. She's a _fan._ I can have them, too. And she was charming. Not that you'd know, you boundless git, you wouldn't get within five yards of her."

_I can't hear you and even if I could I wouldn't look at you and even if I did I would cut you where you stand John Watson, with nothing more than the glare in my gorgeous eyes._

"Fine, I'll just go back and take that perfectly lovely woman—her name's _Anarion,_ by the way—up on her dinner—"

Sherlock stopped and swoop-turned so suddenly John walked right into him. "She _kissed_ you John. On the _mouth."_

Yes. John knew it would come to this. Which is why he was prepared. "Yes, she did. But Sherlock, didn't you see? I totally didn't kiss her _back."_

_Written for the glorious Anarion who, despite what John says, would so definitely inspire a kiss back._

_P.S. PORN! I write wee Tumblr fics about once a week, so get piping hot porn over there in between stories here (remove the spaces): tinyurl. com/ atlin-tumblr_


	34. Plumage

**Plumage**

Sherlock does it often.

Flying down a flight of stairs he'll flick his coat tails out behind him until they billow, for all the world the spread of a fine, tweedy plumage.

"Peacock," grins John, and Sherlock scowls.

Sherlock does it often.

Whether in defense, to intimidate, or sometimes (just sometimes) to get John's attention, he takes a deep, chest-broadening breath, stands tall, snaps that collar up high.

"My little pouter pigeon," John murmurs, and Sherlock rolls his eyes.

Yes, Sherlock does it often.

In the looking, the observing, he turns wide, pale eyes onto the world and watches with such intensity that he sometimes forgets to blink.

"Owl," says John, and Sherlock's too busy rubbing his pretty peeper to roll them at anyone.

Sherlock can't stop himself from doing it.

He lands at a crime scene, pecks dramatically at clues, darts here, bobs there, flutters and flaps, chatters his conclusions quicker than quick and then, with a prideful crow, flits off, case closed.

Later, when they're alone, John calls him _flamingo_ or _parrot_ or _cockatoo._

John doesn't do it often, murmuring these silly avian endearments. But sometimes he does, and if they're alone, and the mood's right, they make Sherlock positively preen.

"You're amazing my love. You're annoying and daft, noisy and stunning and strange. My beautiful, beautiful little bird."

_Don't ask me why, but when I looked at this hummingbird photo - __500px. com/photo/5626903 (remove space) -_ the first thing I thought was: That's Sherlock. (I may need medical help.)


	35. Weak

**Weak**

John Watson favors the weak.

Every friend John had growing up, every lover he's loved, every man or woman he's been drawn to for every year he has lived…all of them, every last one were hurt or broken or breaking.

Marty had a stutter. Andrew had a limp. Barbara was pathologically shy, Steva was abused. Ada pretended she was crazy, Ishan really was. Jamie, Grace, Jennifer, Jade, Aruhe, Ben, Christina…

All of them, every last one, was weak.

And oh it was _wonderful. _John loved their every frailty. He always said what needed saying, he held hands wanting holding, and their pain, it made John focused, it gave him purpose.

But eventually it wasn't enough. John had _more,_ so much more to give and so he joined the army. There bullets and bombs reduced people to their most basic parts, leaving them exhausted, needy, weak…and waiting for someone strong.

"I'm here," John said times past counting to an uncountable number of men and women. "I'm here and you're all right."

Never aloof, never cold, never _apart_, John was the doctor who touched, he was the one who talked to you late in the night, cared about your fears, both real and imagined. "Where does it hurt?" he asked, and listened to the reply. "Tell me what you feel," he said and long nights were made short as the wounded did just that.

And then one day it happened. Someone was holding _John's_ hand and his chest ached and he couldn't move his arms—not either of them, for days, though it was only the left one that was torn up, torn open—and they sent him home because he was exhausted, needy, and weak.

Once there he stared at four walls and talked to himself in the silence—"You're all right," he said, "You're all right," but nothing was all right and there was no one there to ask him where it hurt.

And then came Sherlock.

At first John thought he was the one being rescued, because at first he saw that amazing creature the same way everyone else did.

Sherlock was powerful, a giant. He filled a room, he filled your head. You stilled your tongue and stayed silent so that his words—a babbling, rushing flow of them—could make things clear, could speak for the dead.

And suddenly it _was_ all right because Sherlock had picked him, from millions who were _more,_ Sherlock chose _him._

And it was wonderful. For a long while John was like everyone else, he saw himself as the one who followed, the lesser, the one with the limp and the war wound, the slow brain and the nightmares.

All it took was a couple months as flatmates before he realized the pale man he lived with was a magnificent construct, as delicate as candy floss, as easy to cripple as any soldier fighting in any endless war.

Where others saw indomitable will, John soon saw simple ignorance. Sherlock can run farther, go hungry longer, stay awake for days not because he's strong but because he's _defective._ He takes everything to an extreme because he doesn't know any other way. He runs at a wall until he's run _into_ it because he has no idea how to stop until he's hurt, hungry, bleeding.

And then it all made beautiful sense.

Sherlock was the weakest human being John'd ever known and so of course John was drawn to him, hungry for him, grateful to be there for each fall, every little destruction.

And so Sherlock tilted at windmills and John patched him up, and everything was right and in still nights Sherlock would whisper his gratitude and John was proud to be strong.

Then some time after their tenth wedding anniversary came a small and silent betrayal and it took both of them so low John was sure there would never be an eleventh year. And that's when the good doctor finally figured it out: he was the weakest one of all and _that_ was why he craved the fragile and the broken.

For awhile that knowledge took him lower than he'd ever been, brought him to a place a war and a wound never had.

But here's the thing: John was wrong.

He doesn't favor the weak because he himself is frailer still. He's drawn to need and pain because John Watson's got a rare gift. With his words, his touch, or jus his presence he helps the most fragile man become fierce, he helps the most imperfect woman become a force to be reckoned with.

There'd be dozens more anniversaries for Sherlock and John, and at least one more trial by fire, but like the first they'd survive the second, and if there's a third waiting they'll make it through that and each will do what fire always does: tempers, refines, fortifies.

Yes, John Watson favors the weak, and in his long and eventful life he'll do one thing so very, very well: He will make the smallest, the weakest, the most delicate…so very strong.

_He's not half so dramatic or vocal as the great detective, but John's fully as powerful a character as Sherlock—maybe more so. Here's one reason I think that's so. The companion piece to this—"Strong"—is found a few chapters after this one._


	36. Weighting Game

**Weighting Game**

Sherlock wiggled under the duvet.

"This," he murmured, heading south.

"Really?"

"And this."

John twitched, ticklish. "No one—"

"And here."

"You couldn't—"

Sliding low, the good detective danced fingers over full flesh. "And oh yes, right here."

John grunted as his lover took firm hold. "Why didn't you… aah…"

"…say anything at the time?" As he stroked slow and sure, Sherlock wrapped thighs either side of John's calves. "Because you loved what you looked like, you were proud of what you'd done."

A long arm proved its reach when slender fingers slid along John's bum and then _in._

"You… _ooh_… weren't."

Sherlock, always a superb multitasker, maintained the stroking, the fingering, and the talking.

"I'm always proud of you."

John grunted to let Sherlock know he was listening.

"Whether you're 'fighting fit' as you called it, or lush again, like this."

John giggled, thrust his hips. "L-lush?"

Sherlock breathed hot over warm skin. "Lush, tender, plump… delicious."

Sherlock devoted himself to finishing what he'd started. Only after John's breathing was again steady did he lay beside his husband.

"Do you realize most of those words apply to food, my love?"

Sherlock rested his palm on John's no-longer-flat belly. "Of course. You nourish me. Feed me." Sherlock pressed face and teeth against John's neck. "You're my sustenance. My inexhaustible bounty."

_John'll go on a few weight-loss kicks over the years, and each time he'll eventually return to the slightly-soft body he's probably meant to have—and the one Sherlock (and John, actually) loves most. P.S. This teeny tiny update brought to you by My Little Hell Week and the letter B._


	37. A Single Train of Thought

**A Single Train of Thought**

They give you things.

In first class train travel they're forever trying to serve. Sandwich? Coffee? Tea? A bit of banter, flirting, free wi-fi…what can we do for you?

"Fuck off."

Sherlock kicked John under the table. He rarely did that, but he's learning a lot from his lover and enjoys employing new-found skills. Covert kicking is the latest and he finds it surprisingly pleasurable.

"Why are you _kicking_ me?"

Sherlock smiled smugly (he didn't learn that from John, but they've certainly augmented one another's natural tendency). "You're being inappropriate, John."

John wasn't listening, he was trying to get his hand in Sherlock's trousers again and was again foiled by another trolley-bearing steward offering wine, fresh fruit, or fucking kittens, for all John knew.

"Do they think we'll starve between Cardiff and London? And why is your belt so god damn _tight?"_

John had woke hard as the Browning's barrel this morning and they hadn't had time to, mmm, _unhard_ him before catching their train home. As a result he was nearly crawling into Sherlock's lap.

"Five minutes. I just need five. Three. I can manage with three."

About then the train entered the darkened Severn tunnel, trolley service temporarily ceased, and good Dr. Watson did one thing, then another and in less than three minutes—_"Oh god"—_proved his boast.

_Anarion, the queen of 221Bs, Verity Burns, the fic queen of this fandom, and myself traveled by train to London recently. We challenged one another to write train travel-themed 221Bs. Yet that didn't seem like party enough, so Ariane DeVere and Stacey were kind enough to make it a proper celebration by adding their own. Enjoy!_


	38. John Watson's Anatomy

**John Watson's Anatomy**

John is full of contradictions, riddled with features, mores, and manners that just should not work, much less unite so seamlessly that, when you look at John Watson, while you _could_ look away, you sure-as-damn-hell choose not to.

That mouth, shall we start there?

John's mouth is broad and thin-lipped, sort of there and not there really. It's sometimes sweary, shockingly so, especially when it doesn't strictly have to be. But the strangest feature of that mouth is that it's prone to frowns that somehow_ still make John look like he's smiling._ Sherlock's not sure that's even possible.

Those hands, have you seen them?

There's no other way to put it: John's hands are _right._ They're not the willowy things of his lover, they're hands that can hold, help, heal. John's hands can lift a man when he's fallen, they can soothe a child who's hurt, they will touch with great gentleness when that's needed—which frankly, it always is, even in the middle of a war—but those hands are also broad, capable, so very strong. They are steady hands, sure, and the only man who has ever seen them shake is also the one who's caused the trembling.

That walk, did you notice it?

It's not a strut, a stroll, or a saunter, John's walk. It's not remotely patient or uncertain. It's a tramp, a stride, a kicking-arse-and-taking-names kind of march, it's a bigger-than-he-seems prowl, and frankly the first time Sherlock saw it he thought John was over-compensating. Within a few days he realized the good doctor was only playing fair. _See this?_ that stride said to any who cared to hear, _this is me not taking shit. This is me _never_ taking shit should shit you choose to give. So don't. Don't even try. Seriously._ Then, when at rest, John's smile, the casual way he clasps his hands behind his back, they provide the epilogue: _Are we good now? Great. Thanks. Cheers._ Is it any wonder Sherlock find's his tiny tyrant fascinating?

John's clothes, oh god where to start?

The rubbish tip perhaps? But no, somehow the checked shirts, shapeless jumpers, the half-size-too-large jeans work, and by 'work' their function seems confined to being so casual and plain that they actually wave metaphorical arms and scream, "Bad ass mother fucker coming through! Seriously, step back because this little guy's so beyond fierce he could wear a pink tu-tu and still take you down first go with a Browning L9A1 or three well-placed words of polite invective, so stand the fuck back. No, seriously."

Oh, and speaking of little, John is. Obviously.

In a world where men are usually a good half-head or more taller than he is, John stands out among them like a tiny beacon of…tiny. Yes, you heard that right: there's something about him that is expressly, clearly, and boldly _small._ You don't _not _know John's short. You'll never not know he's short. Yet the whole point of realizing how short John is seems to be so that that very shortness can say calmly and without complex _so the hell what? _You expect size matters do you? Well go right ahead, have your expectations, feel free. But step aside would you, I'm busy defying them, all right? All right.

Well, while we're defying expectation, who expects fierce to also come with a side of fluffy?

Because John Watson isn't all sharp tongue, marching stride, and bad ass mother fuckering, no ma'am he's not. He's also tender, soft, sweet. When Sherlock pokes at his bit of a belly—and he often does though we won't say precisely with _what_—John wriggles a little, giggling, because he's a bit sensitive there. Just a touch. When his lover is impossible, or brilliant, short-tempered, or kind, no matter what the moody detective decides to be, John will always, of a morning, take all the time that's required to kiss his love gently-softly-slowly, until they're both awake, both smiling, both very, very aware that what they have is quite nearly perfect, and oh-most-certainly rare.

Ah, and speaking of rare…

When the doctor first met the detective everyone expected their relationship to flame out fast. After all, no one else could work with the cranky genius, and the semi-suicidal ex-soldier wasn't exactly a prize, so good luck gents, whoever shoots the other first just try to keep the mess to a minimum, okay? Well that's not what happened of course, the whole world knows that that's not what happened. Instead a miracle occurred, John and Sherlock became: John and Sherlock. Because you can't really say the one without the other anymore, can you? John and Sherlock. Sherlock and John. They're a unit of measure now, a single entity, a set. Where goes one the other follows. And always, forever, will.

Oh this doesn't really begin to cover the anatomy of John Watson, but it's a bit of a start. A primer if you will. It's enough to be going on with, enough to let a good and serious student understand just what an uncommon creature John Watson is. Not that it precisely matters that _you_ know that, really, no. Frankly it doesn't matter at all.

To the one man it most matters to…well he already knows all of these things. Of course he does. He knows more about John Watson than anyone else ever will. And that simple fact? That beautiful elegant fact warms the most tender and precious part of John Watson's anatomy: His heart.

_Written for Livia Carica._


	39. There And Back Again

**There…**

They rarely leave London.

"John, I don't want to go."

"We can tell the cabbie to turn around."

There was a suspended moment of…maybe. But they didn't. No, they were heading to America; for how long they didn't know.

It was a point of pride, this case. The CIA and MI5 both at a loss, everyone so desperate that they'd come to a lone London detective, famous as much for his bad attitude as his crime-solving aptitude. Oh, what a fine chance to show off.

"It's bright over there, isn't it? And computerized. And shiny. And _new."_ A dismissive snort. "No wonder they can't solve a simple espionage case. Probably over-stimulated and sun-blind." They weren't even halfway to Heathrow and the bad attitude was stretching its legs. New record, that.

Long silence. Then suddenly, "I want tea."

John turned to his husband.

"I want _tea."_ Sherlock said louder. "And a Bakewell tart. And cream biscuits. And sheep."

John giggled. "And a pint? And rain? And a hedgerow?"

Sherlock frowned, then nodded. "Am I homesick? We haven't even left yet."

A military man, deployed three times, John knew well what Sherlock was experiencing now for the first time, and it was indeed homesickness. And something probably quite new for his hidebound detective.

"My love, I think you're suddenly feeling very…_British."_

_..._

…**And Back Again**

"Look, John."

"I am. She's beautiful."

"I want to see her."

John tapped on taxi glass, "Stop here please."

They paid the driver to take their luggage on, arranging with Mrs. Hudson to meet the cabbie at 221B.

Then they walked home.

And Sherlock looked at everything.

One gloved hand anchored in John's, he tugged them along the sinuous Thames, then over the strange streets behind the Savoy. He ran them across the Strand, then on past the bright-lit opera house. He employed sharp elbows to jostle them through Covert Garden and then on to busy Chinatown. They stopped for tarts and tea near Trafalgar.

A pint was had off Regent Street, a miniature hedgerow admired near the Langham Hotel. They wracked their brains for sheep, then had to backtrack to visit a wool shop close to Piccadilly Circus.

When they reached the east edge of Regent's park, Baker Street not too far now, Sherlock at last calmed.

The case had been a success. The great detective had found the few clues that mattered among the thousands that didn't. He'd done more than show off, he'd damn-well dazzled, solving the case in just over one day.

And through it all he'd talked of London.

"John?"

"Yes love?"

"This is good."

"Yes love."

"It's good," Sherlock murmured, soft. "Good to be back."

_This is what I a little bit do each time I leave and return to London. Actually, I'm worse. If I told you how many times I've kissed the door to 221B you'd be appalled. (Oh, and yes, these are both 221Bs.)_

_P.S. "This Time No," was due to publish today but LiveJournal is so problematic, I'm waiting until next Thursday. Apologies!_


	40. Deleted Epilogue: This Time No

_**DON'T READ THIS if you think you'll read my story "**__**This Time No" as this wee fic gives away important plot points. Originally intended to be the last chapter of that story, I decided to not include it. Some folks expressed interest in it however, so here it is; a deleted scene basically, a sort of DVD extra.**_

He started the kneeling and the kissing about ten years ago, though at first he wouldn't say why.

No, that's not true, he gave a reason but it was a lie. Perhaps his first in years.

Eventually he told his secret, as they both knew he must. There's nothing he can keep from those ever-watchful eyes.

"I guess I do it because it feels more intimate; I feel closer to her. If I have to get on my knees somehow…sometimes it's like…"

"Like you're bending down to kiss the head of a child," said John.

Sherlock eyes widened in revelation. "Yes, that. _That._ All this time I thought…" Sherlock touched the black marble. "Well, all this time I thought I was paying penance."

John held out a hand but for long moments Sherlock didn't see it, saw instead many years spent going to his knees so he could kiss a black stone. Finally he looked up, took John's hand, grunted himself tall again.

Unlike at home, the good doctor didn't tease him about those noises or his gamey knee. Instead he teased him about other things. "You're such a drama queen, my queen."

Sherlock grinned, murmured, "Shut up," as he brushed off his trousers. Glancing a last time at the gravestone he took John's arm and they walked away. "How old would she be?"

Every time they came to the cemetery Sherlock asked. Despite the lack of dates on her dark tombstone both knew the year Phoebe was born and died. "Do the maths."

Sherlock made an uncouth sound. "Yes, because that always works out well."

It happened last week, it has happened pretty much every few weeks for all the years they've been together. Give Sherlock a duty, a chore, a goal that includes basic maths and good luck to you.

Shouting through the loo door "bring me two plasters when you come out Sherlock," will invariably net John three.

A call toward the kitchen for "a dozen biscuits, love," will cause the detective to produce a plate on which there are either eleven or thirteen, rarely twelve.

"We need a half dozen eggs, get some on your way back from the Yard, won't you?" Inevitably the item brought home will contain five eggs. "How do you manage that Sherlock, how? Do you actually take one _out?"_

Which is to say, despite an intellect half again as bright as the sun, Sherlock Holmes is dim as a 25 watt bulb when it comes to simple arithmetic.

"Sherlock Holmes, how long have you been married to me?"

"Twenty-five years."

"Phoebe was born ten years after we married. So how old would she be?"

Suspecting a trick Sherlock took his time answering. He did the figures in his head three times. John could tell because he was counting on his fingers, pressing them lightly and in series against John's wrist as they walked arm-in-arm.

"Fffff…" he began cautiously, checking John's expression with peripheral vision, but his husband was sphinxishly giving nothing away. "…fffifteen?"

John patted Sherlock's arm. "My little super genius."

Sherlock was proud of himself and John was proud that he was proud, though not even an hour later threats were being made.

…

"—and if you don't shut up I'll bite you." John chased a blueberry with his fork.

"How can you bite me, you don't have any teeth." Sherlock's fork chased that same berry.

"I have all my teeth." John won the chase but only because he cheated.

"Dentures don't—"

"I do not have dentures!" John Watson hollered. Three other diners glanced over then quickly away.

John savagely masticated the berry and wondered how in hell he still let this unmannered fool rile him.

"You're an unmannered fool."

Sherlock nodded and stole more of John's pie. "I like that one. Idiot's been used to the point of exhaustion."

John thought about kicking Sherlock under the table.

"Go ahead and kick me if you like, it'll make you feel manly."

"I don't need to feel—"

_Damn it,_ he did it again. John squinted at Sherlock and swore in his head, and—

"Do feel free to swear—"

—reflected not for the first time that the two of them were going to live forever. Possibly longer, because each would steadfastly refuse to die if he had even an inkling that the last word would not be his.

John grinned, showing a mouthful of perfectly _fine_ teeth. "Stop eating my pie, you fool. You're supposed to lay off the sweets remember?"

Sherlock made a face and sat up straight. His bit of belly didn't bulge—was bulge the right word for something that _didn't bulge?_—when he sat straight.

"Now chew, swallow, and stand, Mr. Holmes, we're going home. I've got celebratory plans for you."

…

They didn't quite make it directly home.

First the neighbors next door waved them over and gave them fresh-made biscuits, then the neighbor's downstairs invited them in and gave them something that possibly contained cake but all John could see was frosting (and Sherlock's wide eyes), then while they stood outside their own flat door, juggling laden plates and searching for keys, the downstairs neighbor ran upstairs to ask if they'd babysit, and while John arranged the where and the when Sherlock disappeared into the flat and ten minutes later John realized everything was suspiciously quiet and so he excused himself and at last closed his own door behind him and…

"Sherlock Holmes-Watson, put the fork _down."_

It took actually wrestling the cake and the fork from him, but in the end the tempting sweets were put away and the sugar addict was herded into the bedroom. Before long they were at last in bed, settling in and filling up with quiet, having a lot of thoughts about a whole host of things. Good stuff. Bad stuff. Long ago mistakes, perfect words, terrible misunderstandings, grand ideas.

They started talking about some of them, a talk that went long into a still night. They marveled at the things they'd done, would do; at the places they'd been, and had yet to be.

Eventually they went mostly silent though neither slept. Then, eventually, John said a simple thing that needed saying, "You're awake, I can hear you thinking. So stop thinking and get your hands on me. It's been a little bit of forever since you stroked me off."

Sherlock grinned in the dark and rested a hand on John's hip. "You're a deeply unmannered man, John Watson."

John wriggled until his relevant parts where near Sherlock's other hand. "And happy 25th anniversary to you too, love. Now shut up and do me."

Sherlock shifted in the shadows, pressed his warm body against John's warm body, whispered against his mouth, "As you wish my love."

_This was the 'fluffy' ending I wrote for "This Time No." In the end I thought it best to end the story one chapter sooner, but I'd like your opinion on two things: What do _you_ think? Was this right or wrong for the ending of that story? My second question: If you agree that this didn't fit the tone of the tale would you nevertheless point to this chapter from the end of "This Time No"? Thank you!_


	41. Strong

**Strong**

Some kids are just easy to hate. They're too tall or too short, too fat or too thin. They're bright or dull, sweet or mean or maybe, just maybe, they're Sherlock Holmes, just that and that's more than enough.

The problem with Sherlock, then now and always, was that he was too many hateful things at once. He was slim and so he looked frail, he was very smart and so he made others feel stupid, he was eye-catching and therefore suspect, and oh-dear-god the worst thing, the absolute worst thing in the entire world: he never damn well shut it.

Which was why, when he was eight years old, Aislin Cays Grace took it upon herself to finally shut the little pest's mouth _for_ him.

It was after he corrected her in front of the class—"But Mr. Maines, she hasn't got the right equation at all"—and he's lucky that afterward the only place he needed stitches was his lip.

Actually he was luckier than he knew. Deducing—without even knowing the word—that she was mostly blind in one eye he shrieked that out at the top of his lungs while she beat him. It was the only reason she stopped. It was the only reason he didn't end the day with a concussion. And it was the very first time Sherlock can remember feeling strong.

It wasn't the last.

When he was nearly sixteen and his drowsy libido was becoming more demanding, he'd followed a boy—in his head he called him friend—back along the far side of the lake. His mind might now be a palace but it wasn't then, so Sherlock can't tell you how they went from talking to touching to both of them looking between Sherlock's spread legs and seeing the bulge in his trousers.

Sherlock _can_ tell you how they went from 'friends' to arch-enemies (his first use of the term): Benjamin had laughed and called him queer. What Sherlock called him later—in front of his parents and two older brothers—was the second time Sherlock remembers feeling strong.

And then everything started happening all at once. Sherlock's body grew tall, his already buzzing brain felt as if it caught fire, and every gift (intellect, beauty), and every flaw (oversensitivity, biting wit) began to flower.

And any strength Sherlock Holmes thought he had turned to dust.

His peers made sure of that. Because some kids are just easy to hate, and the gangly one with the long face? He just ached to be called horse. The pedantic one who knew the right answer and the next answer and the next? 'course he was a retard. And the one who knew more, so much more about math and chemistry and statistics and blood and bones and…well fuck it, he was just a freak.

For years it seemed to go on and on and so endlessly on, never stopping. There were so many words to say and no one to hear them, so many things to see and no one else saw them, and finally, at twenty years old, when he was exactly on the edge, when he was teetering between burning up or being reborn, Sherlock chose another path entirely.

He started to cut.

And he felt strong.

He began to starve.

And he felt strong.

He took drugs.

And the one thing that made Sherlock Holmes unique, rare, and truly powerful…fell to ruin.

For awhile.

People credit his parents, his brother, DI Lestrade, and the love of some mystery man for getting Sherlock clean but it was none of those things, it wasn't even really himself. It was something as simple and undramatic as the passing of time. And a very late blooming.

After Sherlock used up most of his self-destructive tendencies, after he grew tired of being tired, after he looked at his brother one day and did not know his name, Sherlock simply stopped what he was doing. And started all over again.

And this time he finally focused that brain of his and he did what he could do: He saw. He saw everything, all of it, all at once, and it was like damn well seeing god.

Finally and at last Sherlock had The Work.

And it was good. No, it was better than good, it was like falling and flying at the same time. It was being on fire without burning, and it didn't matter that he was still too thin, too smart, a freak. Alone was good. Alone was protection. Alone made him strong.

And then there was John.

They say the devil's in the details and it's true. This detail, with the old-fashioned middle name and the steady hands, he waltzed in quiet as you please and detail by tiny detail he showed Sherlock, at last, what strength _really_ was.

It was holding your tongue when you want to rage.

It was singing someone's praises while everyone else mocks.

It was fighting only when fighting really matters.

And it was loving someone everyone said was unlovable—including the man being loved.

For thirty-four years Sherlock Holmes tried to be strong and mostly he failed. And then he discovered that if he put down his armor, if he was willing to be wrong, be silent, be needed, be needy, if he was willing to let himself love and be loved, well damn it, _damn it…_it seemed then he was the second strongest man on earth. And loved by the first.

_This is a companion piece to "Weak," found a few chapters before this story. Thank you Purrculier1, for motivating me to finish it._


	42. Like Chalk and Cheese

**Like Chalk and Cheese**

"Say cheese."

"No.

"That's what they say, isn't it? Cheese?"

"I don't care."

"John. It's very simple. Just hold her close, kiss her, I'll take a photo, and we're done."

"I'm going to pee in your shoes."

Sherlock stamped his foot, accidentally firing the flash in his own eye, but even temporarily blind his mouth still worked just fine. "John Watson, if you don't buss that dog and look happy about it the case is ruined."

"I don't recall being asked about this."

"Did you ask me about the beer garden case? The one where I had to drink so much Doppelbock I lisped for two days?"

"You said you were bored."

"And how about the one with the proctologist? As soon as I got into those stirrups he started inserting—"

"I said I was sorry about that."

"Well now's your chance to prove it. Kiss. The. Dog."

John looked at the Great Dane, who looked lustily back at him.

"If she gets fresh—"

John's pretty sure the gargantuan hound had gone in heat the moment she'd laid eyes on his small, defenseless body.

"—_you_ will pay."

The dog inched closer, huffed happily in John's face. The good doctor closed his eyes and thought of England. "And I warn you love, my bite's _much _worse than my bark."

_Anarion prompted 'cheese' and here's what I thought about that._


	43. The Man Who Started It All

**The Man Who Started It All**

"Yeah, he's always like that."

John didn't remember Stamford saying that, and he didn't remember Stamford winking at him a few seconds after Sherlock did the same.

John remembered pretty much two things about the day he met Sherlock. He remembered saying to Stamford, "What the hell was that?" and then saying, "How the hell do you know him again?"

And the funny thing about _that_ is John doesn't remember Mike's answer. After _that_ however he remembers one thing, of course he does: He remembers meeting the already-annoying man at 221B Baker Street and moving in pretty much that day.

Oh, John remembers another thing, calling Stamford up less than a week later and saying, "You would not _believe_ what the hell happened this week."

But the funny thing about _that_ is that Stamford believed. He may spend most of his days teaching eager young med students, but he's a big believer in destiny and he'd always sort of thought John Watson was destined for…something.

So as John regaled Mike with the pink lady particulars, Mike grinned and nodded and encouraged some detail here and maybe a bit of embellishment there. And though John left out the bit about shooting the cabbie, it turns out he didn't have to mention it.

Because here's the thing about Mike Stamford: When John and Mike met in medical school a few entitled idiots (who didn't make it through that first year, incidentally) were already calling him Stammy, not because he stammered, but because they thought it made the affable man sound stupid.

Everyone learned quickly, however, that stupid was something Stamford was not.

A rare trio of traits ensured this.

Stamford had a eidetic memory—not only did he know the names of every muscle and bone in the human body, the chambers of the heart, hemispheres of the brain, the chemical formulas for aspirin, paracetamol, and LSD (long story), and the Hippocratic oath (all three versions), but he remembered that Dr. Henson took her tea black on Monday but with cream the rest of the week; professor Tikka was a green belt in Judo; Dana couldn't swim; Arded's mother was Buddhist and his father Muslim; and, incidentally, all the poems of Emily Dickinson, the sonnets of Shakespeare, as well as the Three Laws of Robotics.

Mike also had a natural affinity for connection. He understood: how certain chemicals can help trigger migraines and explain why the pain could be short-circuited through orgasm; that Dana would take to Buddhism; and when two lonely men in their 30s would make suitable flatmates.

And finally, the ultimate key to Mike's unexpected but very real brilliance: he pretty much wanted to be where he was, doing what he was doing. Sure he desired certain things—longer holidays, fewer papers to grade, a teenager that actually _listened_—but overall Mike thrived on knowing, on remembering, on connecting…on simply _being._

So John didn't have to say exactly how he was involved in the pink lady case. Mike could read the papers _and_ people and before the end of the call he'd placed the puzzle pieces together, but all he said was, "I told you it wouldn't be boring."

John didn't remember Mike saying _that,_ either, but it didn't matter, he took the man to lunch later that week, then he took him to lunch ten weeks after that, and then he took him to dinner after he and Sherlock got engaged.

"You don't seem surprised," John said at that dinner. "About the engagement."

Stamford dipped a bit of roll into his wine glass, ate the soggy bread. "Oh I am." More wine via the roll. "Very surprised it didn't happen sooner."

John grinned. There was something wonderful at the thought that someone had thought them right for each other. That someone—Michael Heston Stamford—had seen what no one else saw.

Stamford shrugged. "You two just seem kind of natural, you go together the way that" Mike dipped then waved his roll, "wine goes with bread."

John never did understand Mike's whole bread-wine thing but every time he went to dinner with him John ended up doing it, too. It was oddly enjoyable.

Stamford filled John's wine glass, gestured to the waiter for more rolls. "Still remember the day I met him at the morgue. He was ghosting around there long before he was consulting with the Yard."

John realized there was a question he'd never asked. "Mike…"

"Why did I put up with him when no one else did?" Stamford refilled his own glass. "Because I can see as well as you can. Sherlock's abrasive and arrogant, but that's not all he is. Peel back that big coat and those dark suits of armour and you see the good man beneath."

John ripped a roll in half, then tore that half into tiny bits. "Almost no one sees the good man."

"True." Stamford shrugged again. "But how many do you need?"

John dipped, swished, popped bread into his mouth. "Maybe a few more than there are. He was lonely for a long time."

Mike's wiser than most. He's low-key about it because that's the nature of Stamfords. "Fire for the forge, John. Getting burned hurts but you have to, absolutely have to suffer a little when you're being transformed."

Mike Stamford nodded, ruminated on days long gone.

"Take it from a man who knows."

Then Mike raised his glass and toasted two other men who knew.

_I love Stamford and the simple elegance with which David Nellist played him. I hope we see him in the show again; that'd make me very happy._

_I've been traveling a lot in the last weeks and have fallen behind on "Long Time Coming." I hope to have the penultimate chapter up next Thursday. So sorry for the interminable delay!_


	44. 221

**Two Hundred and Twenty One**

"Normal people don't do this, Sherlock."

"I'm delighted for normal people."

"I don't know why I'm asking because I don't want to know the answer because I can plainly see the answer's _disgusting…_ but what are you _doing?"_

"I've told you twice, John. If you'd stop poisoning your mind with that Down Town Abbey thing you'd remember."

"Oh! Is this thing still that horrible thing from this morning?"

"What do you mean 'is this still—' how easily do you think this can be done?"

"Is it possible to have given the topic a negative amount of thought? Can I have unthought about it so profoundly it has—" John squinted squeamishly as Sherlock did the horrible thing again, horribly. "—ceased to exist?"

"Are you drunk?"

John sat heavily in the kitchen chair across from his busy love. "I think maybe yes. On boredom and disgust. My god I suddenly understand you better now. This might be the dullest conversation we've ever had and it makes me want to shoot something."

"Then go away and give the smiley face a sister."

"Boring."

"Then help me."

"Disgusting."

"John, you've touched, examined, or had projected at velocity upon your person every secretion human beings are capable of making and you think this is disgusting?"

"Yes."

"Fine."

"And it looks horrible for them."

"I'm afraid it is, and for that I'm sorry, but these bees live in just one valley deep in the Apennines, as such they are exceedingly rare. This is the only way to make them unrare."

"It's mass murder."

"Are you going to help me or not?"

"Where's my gun anyway?"

"John."

"Fine, I'll help you but I expect a nice dinner and a good shag afterward."

"That can be arranged. After."

John made a moue. He's good at moue-making. Had training from the best. "How many will it take?"

"To collect enough sperm for the University's breeding program?" Sherlock chuffed out a thinking breath. "It should take no more than two hundred and twenty-one bees."

_I always wanted to end a 221B in two hundred and twenty-one bees; shame this is 350 words (the 221 word version is below). Anyway, ending a 221B with 221 bees was my husband's super-awesome-amazing idea. Thank you Tony. And thank you a bee buzzing billion KeeblerMC for answering my bee questions (P.S. John's right to be repulsed. Don't get online to see how bee sperm is collected. Just don't.)_

...

**Two Hundred and Twenty One**

"Normal people don't do this, Sherlock."

"I'm delighted for normal people."

"I don't know why I'm asking but what is this disgusting thing you're doing?"

"I've told you twice. If you'd stop poisoning your mind with that Down Town Abbey thing you'd remember."

"Oh! Is this thing still that thing from this morning?"

"What do you mean 'is this still—' how easily do you think this can be done?"

"Is it possible to have given the topic a negative amount of thought? Can I have unthought about it so profoundly it has ceased to exist?"

"Are you drunk?"

John sat heavily in the kitchen chair across from his busy love. "I think maybe yes. On boredom and disgust. And it makes me want to shoot something."

"Then go away and give the smiley face a sister."

"Boring."

"Then help me."

"It looks disgusting. And horrible for them."

"It is, and for that I'm sorry, but these bees live in just one Apennine valley and are rare. This will help make them unrare."

"It's mass murder."

"Are you going to help or not?"

"Yes, but I expect dinner and a good shag afterward."

"Fine. After."

John frowned. "How many will it take?"

"To collect enough sperm for the University's breeding program? I think no more than two hundred and twenty-one bees."


	45. The Story of You

**The Story of You**

I had courage before you. I had a life before you. I achieved goals, traveled the world, saw and did most everything I dreamed of doing before you. I was pretty good at being me, which really is the best thing anyone can hope to be.

But then there was you. Oh god then there was you.

A quiet storm, a noisy peace…I don't even know how to describe you sometimes but you're there in my life, big and verbal and amazing and…and the thing is, though I'm complete without you and always have been, you make me _more._

You give me strength when I'm tired, you make me laugh, you make me _believe. _You make me believe in me in a way that's new, in a way that makes me dream.

Today, the person I see in the mirror? If this is all I ever am, this is all I need to be, I'm content. But, but, but…if there's more meant for me, I need you to know that so much of that possibility is because of you.

You laugh at my words and so I feel joy.

You praise me and so I feel strong.

Sometimes you cry…sometimes you let me _make_ you cry, and so I feel like I can change the world.

So I'm going to try to change the world. At least my own small part of it.

I've walked down beautiful roads, sailed across wide seas but now? Now I can soar.

Thank you. Thank you for these beautiful wings.

… . … . … . … . … . …

You may read the wee ode above as one fictional man's love note to another if you like, but that's not how I wrote it. Those 250 words up there are my love letter to _you._

By the time you read this today, I'll be on a plane on my way to London. There I'll begin studying screenwriting.

Three years ago, before a little TV show we both love, I wouldn't have dreamed this. Three years ago before _you_ I wouldn't have understood I _could_ dream this.

My story has become the story of you. You tell me my words move you and so you move me—you move me to _move_ and dream and try.

My story is the story of you but it's also the story of _stories._ You come here and read my silly or serious tales and then—and this is the vital heart of it—then you tell me how much those tales have meant to you. And your words, your kind words have power. They move mountains.

Or in this case they take one person across the world to a new life. Whatever happens for me in London doesn't matter. Because so much has already happened, so much joy, so much _soaring._

I hope all the beautiful stories we share help you find things to believe in, find dreams and the courage to follow them. Help you make your life the story of _you._

I love you for sharing all of this with me, thank you for my wings.

_(Am still publishing once a week; just can't reply much for awhile.)_


	46. Sailor Soldier Boy

**Sailor Soldier Boy**

"If you put those in my hair I will not be responsible for my aggression upon your person, Sherlock."

Sherlock continued studying John's head as if its mouth portion had not moved.

"I'm serious, do not do it. There will be an altercation and you will not be its victor."

Sherlock tilted his head, made a thoughtful moue.

"I will do many embarrassing things for you but today, just now, I have found my line in the sand and that line is here. With those things in your hand."

Desiring a new vantage, Sherlock walked behind John's comfy chair and studied the back of his sweetheart's head.

"I'm going to return to my paper now and trust you will not do the thing I have told you not to do. Do you understand?"

John waited. He took the silence as affirmation. He shook out his paper dramatically. He returned to reading it.

Nothing happened.

Nothing happened.

Nothing at all happened.

John Watson stood this for as long as he was able, which was thirty-seven seconds. On the thirty-eighth he twisted around in his chair. "What the _hell _are you doing?"

Sherlock was doing a very Sherlock thing: He was thinking. Which meant he had heard exactly nothing John had said for the last forty-six minutes—which encompassed most of dinner, and all of this conversation.

Willfully mistaking thinking and silence for innocence, John returned to his paper.

One minute passed. Another. And then it happened. The very thing John said must not happen.

Sherlock pulled a lock of his husband's gone-shaggy hair up, and slid onto it a red hair clip. Then he did this on the other side.

John put his paper down. John picked his paper up and folded it. John counted to ten. And then John said, "I'm going to count to ten, Sherlock. Backward. In Dari."

John paused dramatically. John began to count. Sherlock continued to style John's hair. This time the little clips were white.

By the time John reached minus five Sherlock believed he had achieved, with four hair clips and a glitter bow, a very good 'devoted fan' look for John. It would suit the conclusion of their anime con case perfectly.

By the time John reached minus twelve he'd expended all of the day's store of long-suffering.

The good doctor rose from his comfy chair, tottering only marginally on his red knee boots. He turned, his little pleated skirt flaring just the teensiest bit. He took a deep breath, the big red bow on his chest quivering with his mighty indignation.

And then John Watson—dressed from sandy-headed head to big feet, as Sailor Moon—tackled his husband to the floor.

What John proceeded to do to him there involved a new use for the big red bow, unhygienic but ultimately satisfying application of the pretty hair clips, and things little soldier sailor girls probably know nothing about—but at which little soldier sailor boys are quite adept.

Twice.

_First: Initial exams are over, so "Hair Raising" should continue/conclude next week. Second: This was written for the ever-ebullient 221B-Hound who needed a bit of a giggle. As for why this, do not even ask me because I don't know. I just wanted to get clips into John's hair and I wanted to get them to have sex on the floor but then Sailor Moon—about whom I know as much as Wikipedia just told me—got in there and all I can say is I hope you smiled, dear 221B, I hope at least that._


	47. Sharp

**Sharp**

Sherlock is sharp so many places John's not.

Drifting soft as shadow through the sitting room at 1:00 am, regretting their foolish fight about a foolish thing, John settles beside the sofa carefully, runs a gentle finger across his sleeping sweetheart's temple.

_Sherlock's mind._

Sometimes John's sure he can feel heat coming from the blaze in that brain, other times he's as light-blinded as everyone else by Sherlock's flashes of brilliance.

John tut-tuts softly when Sherlock's brows draw down as if even in sleep he's thinking hard about some hard thing.

_Sherlock's body._

He was too thin for too long, and though those days are long gone there's still so many edges to the man, cheekbones like blades, a jawbone made for geometry.

Over the years John's seen to his sweetheart's softening, feeding Sherlock between kisses, before cases, in their bed. Then John devours the new flesh rounding a bum, a belly, feasting where hungry shadows used to be and are no more.

_Sherlock's eyes._

Sherlock's gaze is a blade, cutting through the distraction of a crowd, erroneous clues, he sees—*flick*flick*flick*—what everyone else sees, and then he sees everything they miss.

John feathers the pad of his thumb across one of Sherlock's eyelids, wonders that he doesn't flinch during the light of day, when the light eyes beneath look at and _see_ him.

_Sherlock's mouth._

For years Sherlock honed the razor of his tongue and grew keen to cut first, before a stranger could take pieces out of him.

Sherlock's now learned to use that tongue for more tender things, and even after a half dozen years John's pulse still thrums when with that mouth his true love loves on him.

_Sherlock's hands._

John's seen those big hands perform the most delicate of experiments, tempering a chemical brew with the whisper of a catalyst, wielding a scalpel with a surgeon's deft touch.

Like his mouth, Sherlock now turns the precision of these instrument to softer pursuits and some nights John swears the man is more magician than scientist, conjuring sensations in John's body that leave him grin-silly and sated.

_Sherlock's dreams._

John watches Sherlock's eyes dance beneath closed lids. This sharpness is John's favourite, because this is the one they share.

For Sherlock dreams of many things, mysteries over which to puzzle, darkness that he can through deduction bring light. Since that night in the back of a cab bound for Brixton, John's wanted the same, and between them they've built a business—some might say a legend—that allows them to again and again do just that.

Amidst John's reveries Sherlock sighs himself awake, then sighs out apologies for a fight neither will remember come morning.

He tugs John onto the sofa and together they close their eyes. Pretty soon Sherlock will start dreaming again, though the dreams won't be about cases or clues. His dreams rarely are.

No, Sherlock will dream of peace, and tea, and the time to enjoy them in. Sherlock will dream of John.

_I wrote for chapter thirty two of this series "Soft," a short tale about John. It seemed far past time that a companion piece about Sherlock was in order._


End file.
